


Counting the Days

by Meatball42



Category: Torchwood
Genre: A lot of them - Freeform, Abandonment, Aliens, Art, Between Seasons/Series, Community: journeystory, Gen, M/M, Slice of Life, Team Bonding, WIP Big Bang 2016
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-26
Updated: 2016-08-31
Packaged: 2018-07-26 19:25:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 15
Words: 29,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7586884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meatball42/pseuds/Meatball42
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Without Jack, every day at Torchwood brings another danger, from without or from within.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story was meant to be completed for Journeystory 2012-13. Now it is finally finished three years, eleven months and one week after I began. I owe so many terribly apologetic apologies for my artist from that challenge, anlinn, who was an angel both in work and temperament. Her art inspired me to keep writing because it embodied the loneliness and disconnect that the characters were feeling every second. For wipbigbang, art was made by stormbrite, a truly generous and dedicated fanworker, who made visible the color and passion that was broiling beneath the surface of Counting the Days, which blossoms under pressure. That masterpost can be found [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7446352). I could not be happier with the gifts these highly talented artists have made for my story!
> 
> I’ve put a lot of heart into this story, on and off through ups and a lot of downs, and through various emo life issues, the beautiful and evocative art for this fic kept its fire alight even at times when almost every other story I had in me withered. Let this be a harbinger of more (completed) stories to come!

[ ](http://smg.photobucket.com/user/airaspade/media/wip-3-TW.png.html)

 

 

Six hours since Jack left

Owen went home for the night after a vicious, long-winded rant that boiled down to ‘the fuckin’ bastard can come back in ‘is own time, I’m not gonna wait around for ‘im.’

_I guess he’s got over his guilt for shooting Jack, then._

Part of Ianto felt guilty for joking about what had happened, but privately he agreed with Owen’s sentiment.

After Owen left, Gwen, Tosh, and Ianto decided that at least two people needed to stay on call in the Hub. Tosh’s Rift activity monitors had been damaged when Abbadon had disappeared and time was rewritten-- and they still hadn’t gotten a good explanation for that. Tosh was running a systems check on the predictor to see exactly what they needed to fix, so she had to remain in the Hub. After a short argument Ianto was able to force Gwen out the door, saying that Jack was probably on some rooftop anyway and subtly reminding her that Rhys was waiting for her to get home. She finally left, though she insisted that they call her the moment Jack showed up so she could give him a right bollocking.

Once the cog door closed, the silence in the Hub seemed oppressive. Ianto and Tosh traded anxious looks. Tosh went back to her analysis of the footage where Jack raced across the Plass screaming. Ianto made up a bed for Tosh in the overnight rooms, which were a short jog away from the main Hub. When he got back, he made her a coffee, then began to work on the massive back-up of reports regarding the 1940’s trip, the opening of the Rift, and Abbadon. With the pair of them working quietly, the Hub seemed both eerie and oppressively normal.

He tried not to think about it.

At ten, Tosh sighed and took off her glasses to massage her eyes. Ianto walked over.

“You should get some rest,” he offered, wishing he had something in his hands. After a moment’s hesitation, he touched her shoulder. She looked up at him gratefully.

“Thanks Ianto. Wake me up later so I can take over for you, alright?”

“Of course.”

During his shift, Ianto got a lot of work done, and there was barely a peep out of the computers monitoring the patch they’d slapped onto the Rift Manipulator. He’d need to work on that tomorrow- or today, rather, Ianto thought, checking the time. It was nearly four. He woke up Tosh and waited until she was working avidly again, and then went to sleep: not in the spare room, but in the hubby-hole under Jack’s office.

 

One day since Jack left

The next day was an exercise in frustration. Tosh and Gwen spent all day making calls and searching for Jack, but there were no responses to any of their inquiries. Tosh kept working on the CCTV cameras around the Millennium Center, which had all gone down for about a minute just as Jack disappeared, but the Rift was quite shaky after Abbadon and the Rift soon required all of her attention.

There were multiple false-alarms, but any time the Rift opened they had to be there in case something came through. For Ianto, the day was filled with driving-- thankfully with Owen, who had no problem taking the wheel so Ianto could remain in contact with the others. By four o’clock, however, he was getting rather tired of it. They collected an alien corpse, an odd contraption that Tosh theorized was a rotating fan from a planet where the air was thicker than Earth’s, a laptop from 1999 and a Weevil fresh from the Rift. The latter managed to rip Ianto’s favorite tie beyond salvaging.

He and Owen stayed for Rift-watching duty, and the Owen basically told Ianto not to bother him at all except for coffee while he autopsied a Nidarian they’d found a week before. Actually, that was exactly what he’d said.

Ianto slept first, in the room off the Hub, because that was where Owen would look for him. When he was woken up-- early-- he remembered his decision to look more carefully over the Rift Manipulator. He worked on that until Tosh came in to help.

 

Two days since Jack left

A pile of flowers fell through the Rift, and it was only when Gwen and Owen brought them back to the Hub for analysis that they discovered Ianto and Tosh were both allergic. Owen prescribed medication and the pair spent the day in the Hub blessing each others’ sneezes and trying to avoid getting snot on their computers.

Tosh managed to get a fuzzy feed from the cameras that had gone dark, enough to show Jack leaping at a disappearing box. The moment he saw it, Ianto’s heart jumped into his throat. He heard himself explain to the others about the Doctor and his time traveling box as though someone else were speaking, feeling like the world had dropped out from under him.

He worked through the rest of the day in a state of shock, and got very little done. The girls insisted Ianto go home that night, but he was called in anyway to take care of a Weevil that had appeared only a few blocks from his apartment. It was a good thing they’d all taken to carrying a few extra supplies in their cars. By the time he brought it back to the Hub, it was six in the morning, and he collapsed for a few hours on the sofa.

 

Three days since Jack left

Ianto finally overcame the shock from Jack’s leaving, the flurry of activity from the still unsettled Rift, and the incessant pounding in his head from lack of sleep, and noticed something that had been staring him in the face for days.

Since Jack had left, Ianto had been experiencing an emotional firestorm which he was repressing with all the zeal of a crooked politician. Part of the near-ritualized suppression was that he refused to think of anything related to Jack except in the stiffest, most Torchwood-related terms. So, naturally, the scene where he dropped his work on Jack’s pet hand’s refrigeration unit and ran to kiss his… to kiss Jack was on the no-fly list for his brain. That was why he hadn’t looked at the hand’s machine since Jack had left.

That was why he hadn’t noticed that the hand was missing.

When he brought its absence to the attention of the others, Gwen said what they were all thinking- that Jack wouldn’t have taken the hand with him if he were about to go for a nice jaunt on a roof, it was far too delicate. Not that, at that point, they’d still been considering roofs as an explanation for Jack’s leaving. Not even their captain was that obsessed.

It was generally decided (over the course of an argument between Gwen and Owen and occasionally Tosh that continued, on and off, for almost eight hours while they all worked) that since Jack was going to be away for a while (the exact time was not generally decided) the organizational structure of Torchwood needed to be tweaked.

It was generally decided (over the course of an argument between Gwen, Owen and Tosh that continued for almost an hour straight in the boardroom) that Gwen would act as leader (exactly how much authority this gave her in certain matters, mainly pay, punishment and final word in disputes, was not generally decided).

It was generally decided that, in addition to their regular duties, Gwen would handle the Retconning of troublesome individuals and tactical leadership, Owen would be first call for reports of Weevil activities, and that Tosh was to take responsibility of all the research into the artifacts that came through the Rift, a task she’d normally split with Jack. It was generally decided that Ianto would handle the liaising that Jack, as Head of Torchwood, was expected to carry out.

It was generally decided by Ianto that the others had absolutely no idea of exactly how much effort went into liaising with a dozen or so related agencies and organizations, and why exactly Jack would pay his weight in gold to get out of a single conference call with UNIT.

That night, he and Tosh updated his file (the visible file that they would allow the other agencies to hack) to give him the authority to speak on Jack’s behalf. He spent his awake shift beginning to organize the information Jack had that he’d need to work with the other organizations.

 

Four days since Jack left

Liaising was the fucking worst job he’d ever had, and that included cleaning up after the Weevils, dodging Myfanwy’s claws during feedings and trying to get alien amniotic fluid out of the backseat of the SUV. The Zhiloid, of a violent but primitive alien race with several rows of sharp blue teeth, did not scare him as much as that man from Downing Street asking him to go over the Torchwood budget. Ianto was ready to scream, but managed to politely put the man off, for at least a few weeks.

Opening the files Jack had compiled for the budget was enough to produce a near-instantaneous headache, and Ianto quickly closed them before he started hyperventilating.

He stayed at the Hub again that night and readied the Zhiloid and it’s new baby (boy?) to be sent back through the Rift.

 

Five days since Jack left

His morning was taken up by a dozen phone calls and emails with various organization heads. Apparently even a few days without Jack Harkness yelling at them was enough to drive all the bigwigs into a tizzy, and it was now up to Ianto to assure them that all was well, the world was not about to end. The agreed upon explanation among the team was that Jack had gone abroad to work on a classified but extremely important situation that required his immediate attention for an undisclosed amount of time.

For some reason, the lack of sleep and proper nutrients was making Ianto’s sense of humour buzz out of control and he found that suddenly every quiet phrase he deadpanned was absolutely bloody hilarious. It apparently endeared him to several officials, who were ‘pleased to speak to someone other than that infuriating Captain.’ Ianto couldn’t help but agree with them, politely, and after that he found himself accomplishing more in a few hours of inter-agency communication and cooperation than Jack had in the past month.

By three in the afternoon, most of the calls were finished, and the rest of the day was Weevil hunting interspersed with fielding requests for additional meetings and calls. Ianto gritted his teeth and tried to be cordial, as much as he wanted to strangle some of the nit-picking bureaucrats.

Fifteen hours straight of Weevils and inter-agency politics. Ianto collapsed in Tosh’s guest room after driving her home and set the alarm to go off every second hour to monitor her concussion. It was not a good night’s rest.

 

Six days since Jack left

Despite having worked arguably well with five people, Torchwood was stretched thin with four, and what with Tosh needing a day to rest off her Weevil injuries, the remaining three were bleary-eyed and droopy-tailed. Ianto had neglected his usual work due to the influx of new responsibilities and took a few hours in the morning to get caught up with restocking the SUV, sending the team’s clothing to the launderers and cleaning the cells: a dozen small tasks that no one ever noticed until suddenly there was no more toilet paper in the washrooms or clean spoons in the kitchenette.

After a mid-morning false alarm from the Rift, Ianto yawned halfway through the MI5 Deputy Director’s droning explanation of why the man selling alien hardware to a possible terrorist group in Swansea was actually not under Torchwood jurisdiction, which didn’t help the image he was trying to establish. After ending the call, he moaned something to Gwen about waking him in a few hours as he collapsed onto the couch.

A half hour later the Rift flared, and he and Owen went out to discover what seemed to be the 40th century version of an egg timer.

He dragged himself out of bed at half three to let Gwen sleep, and made himself a strong coffee so he could see straight.

 

Seven days since Jack left

He was out of coffee.

Ianto stared at the empty container of beans in the kitchen.

There was no more coffee.

Usually, he went to pick up a refill on Thursdays, but when you were trying to deliver an alien baby that had a bigger mouth than a brain as its mother basically tried to claw you for the help, hot beverages were not the first thing on your mind.

There was no more coffee.

Ianto started sobbing quietly. Tosh heard over the com and gently told him to go home and get some sleep. For the first time in a week, Ianto slept for more than four hours in his own bed. He was woken up halfway into the fifth by a call from the coffee shop, asking if he wanted the usual order sent to his home address.


	2. Chapter 2

Eight days since Jack left

After missing two important phone calls because they’d come in the middle of the night from people in different time zones, Ianto set Jack’s phone to ring straight through to his cell. This didn’t help his already-miserable sleeping schedule any, but at least he managed to convey to the small Torchwood outpost in Taiwan that no, really, Cardiff didn’t need any help investigating Jack’s disappearance, and no, this didn’t mean they could finally requisition the equipment Jack had been keeping from them. Ianto had no idea what sort of tech they wanted, but he promised to look into it. More than likely, Jack was holding back some alien ice-maker because someone down there wouldn’t shag him, Ianto thought uncharitably as he slammed his phone down on the bedside table.

Twenty minutes later Gwen came in to wake him up.

~~~~~

Ten minutes after that, while he was showering, the phone rang again.

After screaming curses inside his head while he hastily shut off the water (not as warm as he’d like, but they were underground next to the bloody bay, so what did he expect) and answered his ringing mobile.

“Captain Harkness’s phone, Ianto Jones speaking,” he said politely, trying not to let a hint slip through that he’d slept for twelve hours in the last three days and was standing in the middle of a freezing underground bathroom with soap suds dripping off him. He thought he did pretty well.

“I’m sorry for disturbing you so early in the morning, but I do need to speak to Jack. Is he there?” Ianto smiled from instinct at the calm, motherly voice, tinged with an English accent.

“I’m sorry ma-am. I’m afraid the captain is on,” he paused almost unnoticeably, “temporary leave. But I’m authorized to take care of anything that falls under his purview.”

There was a pause, then the woman’s voice answered, sounding uncertain. “Jack said we weren’t to speak with anyone but him.”

Ianto sighed silently and rubbed his forehead. Another one of Jack bloody Harkness’s dirty secrets. “Then I’m sure I trust his judgment. Is there anything I can do for you, without you releasing information?”

“Could you be a darling and transfer some more funds into the Flat Holm account? Jack set up the account charges already, so there’s a predetermined amount waiting to be sent. I have the authorization.”

“Of course. Will you give me a moment?”

At the woman’s acquiescence, Ianto scrambled to find a towel and rush to the next room. He found a pen and some paper, trying not to drip on it. “Could you please state the authorization code?”

“Torchwood authorization 1983583, Helen Crauss.”

Ianto took the numbers down and asked her to spell out her name, just to be sure, then capped the pen. “Alright Ms. Crauss, I’ll get on this immediately.”

“Thank you Mr. Jones, and please, call me Helen.”

Ianto fumbled with the paper and the mobile and tried to hold up his towel. “Of course. Goodbye.”

Helen replied in kind, then hung up.

Three hours later, Ianto managed to break the protections Jack had set up around the Flat Holm file. He justified it to himself that they had no idea how long Jack was going to be gone, and if he was going to be handing out money from the Torchwood accounts (for which it was definitely looking like he would have to submit a budget to Downing Street) he ought to know where to and why he was sending it.

By the time Tosh came in at nine, Ianto had read the basics of the file and re-secured it, allowing his own and Jack’s passwords the only access, before covering up his tracks so that Tosh wouldn’t find it unless she deliberately searched for it.

He told Tosh that there was an important meeting he had to attend in Jack’s place, and she smiled at him in pity. He stopped by his flat, made a large thermos of the strongest coffee in his possession, dressed warmly and headed to the dock. Ianto managed to find a boat that would take him to Flat Holm Island without too much trouble and spent what should’ve been a refreshing ride over fielding requests from UNIT for the recent Identified/Unidentified Flying Object sightings in the area.

It was noon by the time he stepped onto the island, and he headed straight to the entrance of the underground building, having memorized the map of the island from Jack’s files. He entered his access code and identified himself, telling Helen it was regarding her call from earlier. She door slid open, but instead of allowing him in, the plump black woman stepped into the vestibule. Ianto noted that she was not as happy as she had been that morning, if her crossed arms and stony expression were anything to go by.

“Mr. Jones. I believe I told you I would not be informing anyone but Captain Harkness of our activities here.”

Ianto nodded respectfully. “Is there anywhere we could sit down, Ms. Crauss?”

She looked him over suspiciously before allowing him into the sparsely furnished sitting room just past the doorway. Ianto noticed that Helen made sure to sit herself between him and the corridor that led to the patient’s area, and he felt a glow of respect toward her. She was obviously very devoted to the people she took care of, if her insistence on their privacy and protection was anything to go by.

“So explain to me why you’re here. Captain Harkness is the only one who ever contacts us.”

Ianto sighed. He knew from the records Jack kept that he could trust Helen with the knowledge of the captain’s absence, but he didn’t want to worry her. “Jack had to leave town. There was an urgent matter which required his attention, and we don’t know how long he’ll be. I’ll be taking care of relations with Flat Holm in the meantime.”

Helen’s eyes narrowed, but Ianto’s polite mask was firmly in place. After a few moments, she spoke in a dangerously quiet voice. “He always calls us if he’s not going to be available. How do I know you’re not with the government, trying to take these people back?”

Ianto remembered from Jack’s files that government experimentation was the explanation he’d given Helen and the other caretakers at Flat Holm for the disfigurement- both physical and mental- of the people he brought there. He deciding that Helen wouldn’t trust him if he didn’t tell her the truth. Without the pretence to keep up, Ianto slumped in his seat, letting his exhaustion show through.

“We don’t know why he left,” he said honestly, his voice suddenly gravelly from the tears he’d been holding back for days. “He was just gone. Of his own accord. He didn’t even leave a note, he just left us.” Ianto squeezed his eyes shut and tried to breathe deeply around the lump in his throat.

Helen moved to the seat next to him and hugged him. He sank gratefully into her warm hold, sniffling quietly. He stayed there for a few minutes, before sitting up and wiping his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he said, clearing his throat so that the left-over roughness in his voice wasn’t instantly recognizable. “We haven’t had much time to organize, and I’m afraid the stress has rather caught up to me.”

Helen ‘tsk-tsk’-ed at him and continued to hold him around the shoulders. He took a deep breath and sat up straight, trying to drag his professional demeanor back up. “I came to look over the facilities and meet the residents. I’d like to help more than just supplying money, but I don’t know what’s required.”

Helen smiled kindly at him. “When was the last time you got a solid night’s rest, sweetheart?”

Ianto just shook his head.

“Alright, come with me. We’ll set you up with a bed, and you can catch a few hours. When do you need to get back to work?”

Ianto tried to calculate as Helen led him to a room on the employee’s side of the building, but with the promise of imminent sleep, it was just that much harder to think. “Um.. I cleared the rest of the day, but I might get some calls.”

Helen directed him to an empty cot and he laid down heavily. “I’ll tell them you’re indisposed,” she promised, taking his mobile out of his jacket.

Ianto nodded blearily before slipping away.

~~~~~

It was dark when he floated back to consciousness. The room was silent, empty, and the pale sunlight which had been entering through a small window high on the wall had been extinguished. He straightened the linens on the cot before exiting the room, only partially surprised when Helen came around the corner just as he closed the door.

“Ah, Ianto. I was just coming to wake you up. A Miss Sato asked if you could get back to her when you were available. It wasn’t urgent,” she said quickly to stave off the panic on his face. “She just wanted to give you some good news.”

Ianto nodded in thanks and took his mobile. Eight calls, he sighed. UNIT, Whitehall, that same bloody pencil-pusher from Downing Street, Australian Secret Intelligence Service- that was going to be fun- and a surprise call from Archie up at Torchwood Glasgow. He’d have to take care of that first thing tomorrow. He dialed Tosh.

“Ianto! Great news!” Tosh greeted. He smiled in response to the grin in her voice, a happy sound that he hadn’t even realized he’d missed. “I fixed the Rift predictor, so we don’t have to stay at the Hub in shifts anymore!”

“Good job,” Ianto praised, honestly impressed. He’d expected the repairs to take much longer; it was barely a week since… everything had happened. “You really are a genius, Tosh.”

“Well I have to keep my job somehow, don’t I?” she laughed. “Take the night off, Ianto, you need the sleep. I can stay here tonight.”

Ianto bit his lip, remembering how he’d just had a good day’s sleep while Tosh slaved over the Rift predictor. “Are you sure? You’ve been working on that all week.”

“Yes, I’m sure. You can make it up to me, we’ll give Owen duty tomorrow and go to the pub. You buy.”

“Alright then,” Ianto replied. “I’ll see you in the morning, Tosh.”

“Good night.” He hung up. Helen, who’d made herself busy at a nearby desk, looked up.

“Most everyone’s still awake, if you want to do your walk-through now,” Helen offered. Ianto agreed, checking the time, and was surprised to see that he’d gotten almost ten hours of uninterrupted sleep. Even the few hours here and there he’d been able to snag during the last week had been filled with dreams of Jack, Lisa, Daleks and fire.

A real smile crossing his face for the first time in nearly two weeks, Ianto followed Helen into Flat Holm.


	3. Chapter 3

Nine days since Jack left

Ianto woke up in the morning with a cricked neck from falling asleep right the moment his head hit the pillow. The day got worse from there.

 It turned out the Australian thing wasn’t Torchwood’s business at all, but when he tried to field it to UNIT, they got tetchy and demanded payment in the form of the back reports Jack had been dithering about for nearly a year. Ianto’d had to go through Jack’s files by hand to find the documents in question, only to discover that they were actually classified materials, then go back to UNIT and try to have a cordial discussion about why they’d tried to trick him.

He _really_ understood why Jack ended up shouting so often.

Ianto blackmailed the liaison into taking care of the Australian situation by threatening to call the Prime Minister’s office over the attempted breach of the Official Secrets Act. That took him just up until noon, when Owen and Gwen returned from a routine tech retrieval turned alien attack with only two doors still on the Range Rover. Apparently they’d misread the scanners and Tosh, bogged down with resetting all the Rift Predictor software, hadn’t double-checked their identification of the alert. The only reason Ianto managed to hold back from killing them was that they’d bought lunch on the way back. He sat down in the conference room for his first meal of the day, which promised to be a soul-saving ambrosia in the shape of fish and chips.

Of course, that meant it was the perfect time for his mobile to ring again.

“Come on Teaboy, just leave it for later,” Owen complained when he informed the doctor that, no, he could not make coffee right now because he was doing actual work.

Ianto flipped him off and walked out of the conference room. He checked his caller ID and allowed himself a very slow, deep breath before picking up.

“What can I do for you, sir?” Ianto asked, dredging up the last remaining patience he possessed.

“Have you got the package?”

“What?” Ianto blinked.

“The package.”

“Archie,” Ianto said slowly, but politely, because he knew not to expect logic from the head of Torchwood Glasgow, but he lived in hope. “I don’t know what package you’re talking about.”

“My monthly package,” the old man answered, sounding annoyed. “Didn’t Jack tell you?”

Ianto squeezed the metal railing in front of him, then relaxed his hand slowly. “No, he did not. If you could describe this package, I can ship it to you immediately, sir.”

There was a long silence, during which Ianto suppressed the urge to throttle someone. “Didn’t Jack tell you?”

“No, he did not,” Ianto repeated tightly.

“Oh,” Archie answered, sounding surprised. “Well… I’ll email you the details.”

“Very well. Until then?”

“Goodbye,” came the bemused reply.

Ianto shut his mobile and squeezed it in his hand for a moment. Then he turned and went back into the conference room.

And found Owen eating his fish and chips.

~~~~~

An hour later, with Owen’s complaints about his pay getting docked still ringing through the coms, he and Tosh were tracking down the gray-skinned, heavy-set creature with opposable thumbs that had eaten the side of the Range Rover. Ianto had sent Gwen out on his usual errands run with a very detailed list of supplies to pick up while he worked on the budget at Jack’s desk and listened to the team in the field.

“We’ve found it,” Tosh announced over the coms. “It’s… oh God, it’s eaten part of a warehouse.”

“Looks like it’s gnawed right through the wall,” Owen described. “Let’s not approach it yet. I’ll look around to see if there’s anyone else in the area, get them to go away. You try and get a picture we can run through the Archives, along with anything you observe that would help the search, and scan it while you’re there.”

Tosh didn’t answer. Ianto took a moment from the papers spread out around him to be grateful that Owen was actually a good field agent when he wasn’t being an utter prat.

His mobile beeped a few minutes later and he headed to Tosh’s desktop to upload the photo. While he was running it, he went to make himself a coffee and smiled honestly for the first time that day when he sipped it.

The search came back positive. “We have an entry in the Archives,” he relayed to Tosh and Owen. “They’re called Branx, in the singular and plural. Not as intelligent as humans, but capable of communication. It says here they’re contemporary, just from another galaxy…”

“Any useful information?” Owen asked, but he sounded like he was stressed about the mission, so Ianto let it go.

“Torchwood’s encountered them before, we have a translation matrix, should be accessible-”

“Got it,” Tosh interjected.

“A ship stops by from their system every year or so. Apparently Torchwood made contact when the appearances became more common.”

“Great,” Owen said, sounding relieved. “What do we do with it in the meantime?”

Ianto scanned the Archive entry. “Um… it doesn’t say.”

“Great.” This time, the doctor sounded less happy. “We we can’t just let it roam the streets, eating anything made out of metal.”

“We could keep it at the Hub,” Tosh suggested.

“Gwen’ll have a fit,” Owen pointed out.

“We’ll work something out,” Ianto sighed. “For now, talk to it, bring it in? And we can have a team meeting tonight.”

“Good a plan as any,” Owen agreed. “Let’s go.”

~~~~~

The evening was spent arguing with Gwen over keeping an intelligent alien locked up for six to eight months, until she went down to talk with it and discovered it was happy living in the vaults as long as it could have cable telly.

It seemed that Torchwood’s sister agencies didn’t work as much on weekends-- it was Saturday, who knew-- so Ianto got caught up on his paperwork while the others worked out the Branx issue and wrote up their reports. He estimated that he had another two hours of work when Owen walked into Jack’s office, giving a nasty look at someone outside.

“What is it?”

Owen shifted on his feet. “You’re not serious about docking my pay, are you? Because I’m looking to get a new car.”

Ianto hmm-ed. “I suppose… if you take my shift tonight, I’ll let you off,” he said, holding back a smile.

Owen gritted his teeth, but nodded. “That seems fair.” And then he left.

A few minutes later, Ianto emerged from the office and smiled at Tosh. “You planned that, didn’t you?”

“I got Gwen to do the convincing; she’ll want a night off next week.” The tech shut down her monitors and put on her coat.

“Fair enough.” They left together, and headed for the pub.

~~~~~

Ten days since Jack left

Owen called Gwen in in the middle of the night; apparently the Branx had a friend, who they had to bring in without the help of Tosh’s translation matrix, since neither of them knew how to work it. Ianto found this out when he entered the Hub around eight in the morning and nearly turned around and walked out again.

His mild hangover throbbed at their accusatory shouting and the smell of Branx dung, and he was very grateful for the alien tech that soundproofed Jack’s office when he closed the door to blessed silence. A quick check of his email revealed that Archie had sent a message entitled ‘the Details’, and, curiosity piqued, he opened that first.

It was clearly a supply list, though for what, Ianto had no idea. Archie wanted food, from oranges and pickles to lobster and saffron. There were requests for bicycle tires of a particular brand and tread, a set of Harry Potter books in Mandarin, three hundred bendy straws, a bushel of eucalyptus leaves, a large box of clothespins, nine millimeter bullets and nail polish remover. When he reached the two dozen live hermit crabs Ianto gave up and tuned his com to Tosh’s line.

“Can you find any reason Archie would need… well, any of these things?” he asked, forwarding her the email.

“I’ll see if I can get through the- never mind, actually. There’s practically no firewalls on these servers, Ianto. It’s a serious security risk!”

“I’ll be sure to mention that when I call about how crazy he is,” Ianto muttered.

“There’s practically nothing on here,” Tosh told him, speaking up over the continued sounds of Owen and Gwen shouting at each other in the background. “It’s like he hasn’t filed a report in years.”

“That wouldn’t surprise me,” Ianto said, rolling his eyes. “Tosh, do you want to come in here? It’s a lot quieter.”

“Thanks, but I need my computers. They’ll quiet down eventually.”

Ianto emailed Archie back and continued his work on the budget, not noticing that he’d worked through lunch until nearly three. When he emerged from the office it was to Gwen and Owen standing a foot away from each other behind Tosh’s desk while the poor woman covered her ears and continued working.

When the two standing agents paused for breath, Ianto stepped forward. “What’s going on?” he asked tiredly.

“Those stupid elephants are fighting and they won’t bloody shut up.’

“Maybe if someone didn’t keep provoking them-”

“If they weren’t so incurably annoying-”

Tosh turned and gave Ianto a look. He raised his eyebrow and they gave each other small smiles.

“Why don’t you let Gwen care for the Branx, if they annoy you so much, Owen,” Ianto suggested.

Owen scowled. “I need to do a check-up. It’s standard procedure.”

“They’re frightened and he’s constantly rude to them,” Gwen accused.

“They can take care of themselves,” Owen shot back.

“He’s right,” Tosh spoke up, seemingly willing to get involved now that the discussion was quieter. “They’re not children.”

“So Owen will finish the check-up, and then Gwen will look after them?” Ianto summarized. When Gwen looked about to protest, Ianto cleared his throat. “If you’re not busy, I could use an extra set of hands?” he asked.

She hesitated, then smiled. “Of course. What do you need?”

With a quiet sigh and a polite smile, Ianto directed Gwen into Jack’s office. He showed her the list of files he needed for the various reports UNIT wanted and asked if she could get them from the Archives while he worked. He’d been making the list for the last few days as he sorted through the piles in Jack’s office, and it was long enough to keep anyone tied for several hours.

“I’m going to put my music on, alright?” Gwen seemed delighted at the opportunity to skip out on her own paperwork, and even admitted that a few hours of simple filing would be relaxing. “Six months ago with the police, I’d’ve spat in someone’s coffee if they tried to stick me with their filing,” she admitted. At Ianto’s angry look, she laughed. “Don’t worry, I know better now!”

He spent the rest of the afternoon collecting the information he needed from the computerized files, and when Gwen brought up the last of the boxes from the Archives at half six he thanked her and told her to have a nice evening.

“I think I’ll take a great hot bath and get all this dust off me,” she sighed happily. “You make sure you get some rest too, alright? The computers will wake you up if anything happens, you don’t have to be awake all night.”

“I know,” he told her. “I will.”

She waved at him as she left Jack’s office.

Around one in the morning, Ianto looked up from his work at the sound of angry screeches through Jack’s open office door. He pulled up the vault CCTV on Tosh’s computer and found the two Branx spitting insults across the corridor, if the translation software was to be believed.

Rubbing his aching temples, Ianto instructed the computer to close the vault door, and went to sleep on the bed under Jack’s office to the sounds of muted trumpeting and the constant water noises of the Hub pool.

~~~~~

Twelve days since Jack left

Two days later, everyone was ready to kill each other. The Branx didn’t seem to sleep, and had taken extreme offense to one another’s presence. Even moving them to vaults several floors apart couldn’t stop their near-constant noise-making and the sound grated. Owen eventually declared his desire to tear his own ears off, and Tosh seconded it.

The worst part was that the Rift had been dead silent, and they’d not caught a case or even a Weevil sighting to get them out of the Hub. Everyone’s favorite daydream had become a nightmare.

Ianto locked himself in Jack’s office as much as possible and poured over the budget. He kept finding inconsistencies between the computerized files, the Archived files and the returns sent to Downing Street, all cleverly worked into the Torchwood budget in a way that no one would notice unless they were looking at all three sets of data, which no one had in- Ianto checked- eighteen years.

It looked like embezzling. Ianto had no idea why Torchwood felt the need to embezzle money, but it had started early in the previous Director’s era and Jack had continued the practice. He looked up the last Director’s information: _Alex Hopkins_. Jack had mentioned liking him, but not much else, and his file didn’t give up any clues.

Ianto calculated the final sum of the theft to be somewhere in the range of thirty to fifty thousand pounds every year. All the excess was divided neatly into new equipment and monitoring technology, pay raises, operating costs. It all seemed completely above-board, unless you had the actual data and could see that Torchwood was operating on much less than its yearly allowance.

Although they were technically paid by the Crown, the fraud was to the British government, since it was that body which conducted the annual review. Ianto couldn’t think of any reason why Jack would need forty thousand extra pounds a year, and the unexpected feelings of betrayal and confusion were doing his head in, making him nearly as frazzled and sensitive as the other members of Torchwood Three.

It was Tosh who made the breakthrough that saved their collective sanity. She knocked excitedly on the door to Jack’s office around five in the afternoon and shut the door quickly behind her, silencing the howling Branx. The energetic look disappeared, to be replaced with a blissful expression. “Why couldn’t we put this tech on the vaults?”

Ianto gave a tired laugh. “I checked that. Apparently it chose to be attached to this room. No idea why,” he said in reply to her look of confusion.

“We may not have to worry about it any longer.” She gestured for access to Jack’s computer and he let her sit down. “Look what I found on Archie’s servers.”

Ianto’s eyes widened at the neatly labeled and ordered report logs on the screen, clearly stretching back years from the present day. “I thought you said there was nothing.”

“It’s absolute genius,” Tosh enthused, eyes bright. “It’s fake! The bad security, the messy system, it’s to hide this! I only looked deeper because you asked me to and Torchwood Cardiff has increased access to the data servers, anyone else wouldn’t have been able to find it.”

“What’s he hiding up there?” Ianto asked, mostly to himself.

Tosh answered seriously. “It’s a retreat. Torchwood, through a private firm, owns several thousand acres of land in Scotland. This is why we’ve never had any problems like the Branx before. It’s a private park set aside for peaceful aliens.”

Ianto could only shake his head. Tosh pulled up aerial shots of the land, showing rich forests, a small lake, a village. “This is incredible,” he said quietly.

“They’ve got nearly a hundred residents.” Tosh looked up at him with shining eyes. “Jack did this. He saved so many lives.”

“I don’t think it was only Jack,” Ianto answered, searching through the files he’d been reading for the last few days. “Yeah, Tosh, when was the last time we sent any sort of monitoring equipment or anything to Glasgow?”

“Not since I’ve been here,” she answered. “But that’s only a few years. Why?”

“Torchwood’s been defrauding the Crown for nearly two decades,” he told her, eliciting a look of shock. “It started with the leader before Jack, and it looks like the extra money was being funneled to Torchwood Two.”

“And they kept it a secret because of Torchwood London?”

“And everyone else,” Ianto mused. “No one would react well to a commune of aliens, even if it was in Scotland.”

“So what do we do?” Tosh asked, meeting Ianto’s eyes worriedly. “If we help them and we get caught… we’re not Jack.”

“It’s worked for this long,” Ianto decided. “Besides, if I change the budget now, Jack could get in trouble for faking it in the past.”

“Alright then,” Tosh said shakily.

Ianto offered his hand. Tosh shook it solemnly. Then they both smiled.

“I’m glad to have you on my side about this,” Ianto said honestly.

“Same.” Tosh shut down the server and exited the office. “Looks like Gwen got Chinese.”

“I’ll be there in a minute.”

Ianto sat back in Jack’s chair and bit his lip. He was telling the truth about being grateful that Tosh was there to help him with the Glasgow supply line. But he couldn’t bring himself to tell her about Flat Holm. Something told him that Jack had kept these things secret for a reason. Finding out about the retreat only convinced him he should trust that Jack was doing the right thing, and he made the decision to continue hiding the retreat for humans.

With a final glance at the falsified budget reports, Ianto went to have dinner with the team. 

 

[ ](http://smg.photobucket.com/user/airaspade/media/tw-cover-4-png.png.html)


	4. Chapter 4

Thirteen days since Jack left

The funeral reminded him of his Mum’s.

This time, the casket was closed and the flowers in his hands were different. His mother had loved flowers and had loved sharing them with her son, explaining the meanings of each and their uses. Instead of beautiful purple and vivid yellow hemerocallises Ianto had placed on her grave, for this funeral he was carrying delicate, precious blue and white irises.

He looked around. It was the same cemetery as his Mum was buried in, but there were fewer people in attendance. He saw Gwen sitting in the furthest back of three rows of chairs. She was crying into Rhys’s shoulder while the thick-set man stoically held her, eyes glittering. Owen was sitting next to the couple, eyes staring straight ahead. His expression was blank, giving no notice to anything around him, but his jaw was clenched so tight Ianto thought it might cramp.

Ianto was walking down the grassy aisle between the rows of chairs. He looked at the other mourners on his right. There were a few men and women who looked to be in their twenties and thirties who didn’t seem familiar. Several wore glasses and most were either crying into each other’s shoulders or dabbing at their eyes.

On the other side there was a sweet looking Japanese woman with her wrinkled face set, tears trailing down her cheeks though not a muscle moved. Next to her was a younger man, in his mid-twenties, Ianto guessed. He too looked Japanese; though his hair was thicker, he looked to be related to the older woman. His expression was filled with anguish, and he was watching the casket.

Ianto followed the young man’s gaze. The casket was a rich mahogany colour, set above a rectangular depression in the dark green grass, waiting to be lowered. There were more flowers strewn across it, from the white-fringed gloxinia to flaming zinnias and light blue abor vitae. He analyzed the arrangements and remembered the significance of each one.

Tears were budding in his eyes at that point, but he held them in just as he had at his mother’s funeral as a child. He placed the flowers carefully onto the lid of the casket, not letting a single one drop. That was when he saw the flowers that stopped his heartbeat. Twined together at the stems, a forget-me-not and a xeranthemum were placed dead-center of the arrangement.

Ianto spun around, just in time to see the blue coat swishing through the stone gateway at the front of the cemetery. He ran as fast as his legs would take him, stumbling over small headstones and dashing around larger ones. He heard the sound as he approached the stone arch and called out.

Ianto breached the gate just in time to see the blue box disappear, and woke up as the sounds echoed and faded.

…

It was half four in the morning when Ianto blearily got out of bed. The depressing cloudiness of the cemetery seemed to carry into his bedroom and he couldn’t fall back to sleep. He dressed and left his flat quickly, feeling like he was fleeing from something.

As he walked to the Hub, Ianto tried to slow down and catch his breath, to settle himself after the feelings his dream had stirred up. Normally, he could take comfort in the buildings and the streets that had weathered for years and would continue to stand no matter how many times his heart was broken. This morning, everything felt too dark. It had rained in the night and clouds still hung overhead like wet, black, oppressive blankets in the hour before dawn. Everything seemed dark and heavy and hopeless.

Ianto’s head started to droop as he walked. When he got closer to the bay, there were a few other people walking or driving along, but no one looked at each other. No one touched, no one spoke. It was as though not a single person could bring themselves to break the thick silence over the city.

Ianto stopped on a quiet street corner and looked up, imagining that he could see the stars. Jack watched the stars. Jack would stand on rooftops and just stare upwards, like he was waiting for something to fall out of the sky so that he could catch it. Ianto breathed the cool, humid air and looked up and tried to ignore the heavy, hollow feeling in his stomach that said nothing was going to fall out of the sky for him.

He kept walking. As he approached the water he passed one of Jack’s favorite rooftop hang-outs and glanced up. He gasped quietly when he saw a blue swish way up high, blinking hurriedly and squinting. When nothing happened, he stuffed his shaking hands in his pockets and walked faster toward the Plass.

He spent nearly a half hour that morning checking CCTV in the area, but there wasn’t a single glimpse of a man in a long blue coat.

~~~~~

Shaken by his dream and his imagination, Ianto threw himself into work that morning and managed to finish the first half of the work Jack had been leaving around, which needed to be brought up to date before _Ianto’s_ work could get done. By lunchtime, he was rubbing his eyes and drinking his fourth cup of coffee. He was so jittery that he nearly spilled the precious liquid when Gwen knocked on the door.

“We’re heading out for lunch, taking a break from the screeching,” she told him, speaking loudly to be heard over the Branx in their eternal shouting match. Ianto wished she’d just close the door. “You coming with?”

“No thanks.” He smiled tightly. “Have to call Glasgow.”

“I’ll bring you some headache pills with your lunch, then,” Gwen joked. She left, thankfully shutting the door behind her.

Ianto did take the precaution of swallowing a headache pill before he went to call Archie. Employing Tosh’s program to ensure a secure line, he dialed for the Scotsman’s office number.

_“Busy right now. Tell me what you were calling about, I’ll get back to you, et cetera, unless I decide I don’t want to.”_

“It’s Ianto Jones, from Cardiff,” Ianto said, trying to hide his relief. “We’re getting your shipment together, but we might have a few special additions to the manifest. You know the shipping details better than I do, so could you call or send the proper procedure? Thanks.”

He pulled up the list of requests from Archie and resisted the urge to bang his head against the desk. He’d already ordered what he could online, and found that Jack’s computer had some sort of software to pick out items on the shopping list that had been sourced previously, which saved him a lot of time. Still, a few of the more outrageous requests were still waiting to be bought, and Ianto buckled down to work.

By the time Gwen returned with a small mushroom pizza, only one item was remaining. “There aren’t any shops around here selling fresh peacock meat, are there?” he inquired.

Gwen gave him a strange look. “Not that I know of. Do I want to know why you’re asking?”

“No,” Ianto said firmly.

“Then I won’t ask. You should take a break, you know, you’re looking a bit rough around the edges.”

Instinctively, Ianto’s hand jumped to the knot of his tie. “Ah…”

“Not that you look bad,” Gwen corrected herself. “Just tired.”

“Well…” Ianto indicated the half a desk of paperwork he hadn’t taken care of yet.

The former police officer rolled her eyes. “You do more paperwork in a day than Jack does in a week!”

They stared at each other for a moment, and then Gwen bit her lip and dropped her gaze. “I’ll leave you to it, then.” Ianto nodded and she left.

He ate a slice of pizza, but somehow wasn’t hungry for more. Instead, he spent a half hour debating with himself whether or not he should go through Jack’s desk, before a call from the Defense Ministry sucked him back into work.

A few hours later, the peacock meat was on order, a few more bodies had been ordered from a nearby funeral home for Torchwood’s cover-up needs, another stack of paperwork had been cleared off Jack’s desk and Archie had arranged to drive down and pick up the Branx on Friday.

Gwen poked her head in again and sternly instructed Ianto to come out for dinner, but luckily his mobile rang. Ianto shrugged apologetically and turned away from her mothering glare, shaking off the frission of fear that accompanied the thought of leaving the Hub.

He nearly rushed after her and insisted on taking time off when he saw the caller ID. With a large gulp, Ianto answered the call and spent the next hour negotiating extra time to work on the budget, leaning heavily on Jack’s reputation as disorganized and stubborn.

After a dinner of cold pizza and soda from the communal fridge, Ianto went to work on the last of Jack’s backed-up files. He was looking forward to finishing everything before nine, but he found one more folder wedged partway under a paperweight at the bottom of the pile. Ianto flipped it open and scanned the first few lines, and felt his heart freeze inside his chest.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh, sorry for inconsistent posting schedule. I never remember what day it is or how long it's been. Believe it or not I was intending to do every other day for this one. We'll see if I can actually do that for two chapters in a row.

Fourteen days since Jack left

Ianto woke up to a horrible buzzing in his ear and a body with molasses for muscles. Moaning, he flipped open the vibrating mobile. “Ianto Jones speaking,” he managed.

“It’s Toshiko, Ianto. We were just wondering where you were?”

Ianto’s eyes popped open and he jerked awake. Folded innocently at the foot of Jack’s cot was a yellow UNIT folder, on top his discarded, wrinkled jacket. He took a deep breath before answering. “Stayed up a bit working on… Jack’s backlog,” he stuttered. “Having a lie-in.”

"Alright. Should we order lunch for you?”

“Thanks, would you?”

He farewelled her and hung up, then let himself fall back to the bed. His bruised eyelids slid back shut, but his brain was fully awake and active. The pictures in the file, the details of Tosh’s crime, her contract with Torchwood swirled in Ianto’s mind, making him more nauseated than the pizza he’d choked down at two in the morning.

He didn’t want to think about it. Turning his head to the pillow, Ianto took a deep breath, picking up the scent of Jack, now two weeks faded.

“I’m sorry I ever doubted you,” he whispered, eyes shut tightly. “Flat Holm, the sanctuary, getting Tosh out of that place… I should’ve never called you a monster. Please come back?”

Ianto slipped off into sleep, comforted by a dream of his captain back where he belonged.

~~~~~

At half past ten, Ianto’s alarm went off. He dressed in one of the suits he’d left in Jack’s wardrobe, then climbed up to the man’s office.

He’d closed the blinds the night before so none of the others could see he’d slept in the Hub. Now, none of them could see him square his shoulders, make a silent promise to Jack and Tosh, and sit down at the desk to write the UNIT report on Tosh’s job performance over the last three months.

No wonder it was at the bottom of Jack’s piles.

~~~~~

Ianto’s hands shook as he finished reading over his report for the fourth time and hit send. He dropped his head into his hands on the desk, and wondered how many times the man who should have been sitting there had sent in his own report. For the first time, Ianto understood why Jack had such a low tolerance for UNIT, and he began to wonder how many of the captain’s seemingly petty and pointless arguments with other agencies had been as well-founded as this one.

He didn’t know how long he sat there, but it wasn’t long enough for his heart to stop feeling bruised. He’d followed Jack’s lead from previous reports, and Jack had spoken of Tosh like a tool, like a slave almost. Ianto trusted Jack’s judgment, but it didn’t make him feel any better for speaking about someone he considered a friend in that way.

Eventually, there was a knock on Jack’s office door, and Ianto got up from the chair. He’d had about enough of being inside the office anyway. Tosh was waiting for him, and Ianto’s heart nearly flew into his throat at the sight. “What’s up?” he asked.

“It’s lunchtime,” Tosh said, with a hint of ‘you didn’t know?’ in her tone. “When did you get in? I didn’t see you.”

“I didn’t want to disturb you,” Ianto deflected. “What’s for lunch?” They headed for the boardroom.

“Gwen found this new sandwich place.”

The sandwiches were good, but Ianto barely nibbled. Jack’s empty seat seemed so huge in the corner of his eye, distracting him from the conversation. Every time he looked at Tosh, he remembered the pictures of her at ‘routine inspections’ during her time in UNIT prison, and his stomach turned.

“You on a diet, Ianto?” Owen’s voice interrupted his dark thoughts. He looked at the doctor sharply; there was something in his voice that reminded Ianto of playground bullies, but he felt that ignoring the question would lead to more trouble than answering it.

“Just not very hungry,” he answered casually.

“Probably because these sandwiches are made of grass,” Owen said pointedly to Gwen.

“They’re vegetables, Owen,” she retorted cuttingly. “You’d think a doctor wouldn’t want his friends to die of high blood pressure from eating fast food all the time.”

“I couldn’t care less about your blood pressure, luv, except when you’re in charge of lunch!”

“I didn’t think they were that bad,” Tosh interjected.

Owen turned on her with a patronizing smile. “You’re not exactly a shining example of taste, Tosh.”

“You wouldn’t know sophistication if it bit you on the arse,” Gwen accused.

“It didn’t work when you tried it, what’s that tell you?”

If looks could kill, Owen would be dead twice over. Gwen stormed out of the room. When she opened the conference room door, the muffled screeching of the Branx became clearly audible, a fitting background for Owen’s growling. Tosh scurried away, hair hanging around her face, and Owen spat something sure to be nasty at Ianto as he left as well, but Ianto couldn’t hear it over the Branx.

Somehow feeling more hollow than he had been that morning, Ianto picked up the remnants of lunch, throwing away the various plates and napkins and empty take-away boxes. He rested a hand on Jack’s chair. “We need you,” he murmured, praying that somewhere, somewhen, Jack could hear him.

He was tucking the remaining sandwiches in the fridge when the Rift alarm went off. Tosh announced that the new arrival was a life form, probably a Weevil. Gwen called dibs. “I could use a bit of a break,” she rolled her eyes to indicate the ever-present trumpeting of their alien guests. “Tosh, come with?”

Once they’d left, Ianto shut himself in Jack’s blessedly-quiet office once again and regretfully opened the web folder containing the budget forms from Downing Street. He stared at them for a while, then looked at the hard copies of Jack’s last attempts at organizing the budget, and suppressed the urge to cry.

An hour into it with very little to show, Ianto was almost relieved when Tosh and Gwen returned, looking as though they’d showered in blue goop. Tosh looked like she was trying not to shout at someone and Gwen looked sheepish. Owen looked as though he was getting ready to start needling her, which would only end in tears, so Ianto told the women to go shower while he brought them some spare clothes. Then it was back to the budget.

Ianto was good at paperwork. Paperwork had basically been his only job at Torchwood One, and he was exponentially better than anyone at Torchwood Three. But he was really starting to forgive Jack for all the moaning and procrastinating they’d had to put up with last year.

Owen barged in without knocking around half five, ignoring Ianto’s frown. “As Torchwood’s chief medical officer, I am prescribing that you leave the Hub tonight and eat some real food. Don’t think I’ve missed you hardly eating anything in the last few days,” he said with a piercing look.

“I didn’t realize you cared.”

“If you collapse, one of us is going to have to do this shit.” Owen cast a dirty look at the paperwork piled beside Jack’s desk.

“Thanks for the consideration, but I’m a bit busy doing this shit to go out.” Ianto nodded with finality.

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

~~~~~

Ianto finished the preliminary forms by eight in the evening. He took a break to stretch his legs and did a walk-through of the Hub, making sure that one of the others had been feeding Myfanwy and the Weevils. While he was in the vaults, he was tempted to try and speak to the Branx about keeping their noise down, but even Tosh had returned to the Hub red-faced when she’d tried. He decided to spare his eardrums the trouble.

As he passed the lift, Ianto stopped, suddenly wishing to go home. He checked his watch, checked the Rift monitor, considered the paperwork still in Jack’s office and decided that eight solid hours of sleep were in his future. It was a bit astonishing to realize that he hadn’t left the Hub in two days, and he looked forward to breathing in the fresh air.

As he was walking through the cog wheel door, however, he looked back over his shoulder. Everything was quiet. He’d turned off the Hub lights, leaving the cavern lit only by the emergency strips, which cast a blue glow over the Hub. The team’s workstations shone strangely, wobbling like flames when he moved even slightly.

The Hub seemed to be holding its breath. Ianto wondered why it seemed so empty, then remembered with a pang: Jack wasn’t there. He swallowed, hating the way he could forget and remember every few minutes, just like he had with Lisa. He hated the idea that it could be months and months before he stopped forgetting. He hated the thought of months without Jack.

The blue lights called to him. The Hub waited tensely. Ianto hesitated, then stepped back through the cog wheel door.

Someone needed to stay and watch the Rift.


	6. Chapter 6

Fifteen days since Jack left

Ianto had no patience for the budget that morning. Instead, he dragged the pile of UNIT communications, inter-agency request forms and reports from various Torchwood contacts up onto the desk and organized them in order of importance. He spent the morning trying to make a dent in the red tape and fielding calls from the Cardiff police, who’d gotten wind of the exploding Anubian incident from the day before and wanted to know who was supposed to clean up the blue goop that covered half a residential street.

When his mobile rang again, Ianto allowed himself a quick fantasy of strangling the public relations liaison before answering it. “We’ll pay for the clean-up but we’re not doing it ourselves, just send the bill,” he said as calmly as possible.

“Where’s Captain Harkness?” a strange voice asked.

Ianto banged his knee on the inside of the desk from jerking in surprise, and paused for a moment so as not to swear into the mobile. “He’s on temporary leave. I’m Ianto Jones, can I help you?”

“Well… I’m only meant to talk to Captain Harkness.”

The speaker sounded young, male, and unsure. Ianto forced himself to calm down. “I understand. If there is an emergency, however, I’m sure Captain Harkness would forgive you for speaking to me.”

“It’s not him I’m worried about gettin’ mad,” the boy said quietly. “But we do need help. Can you come?”

“Just tell me where you are.”

A few minutes later, Ianto emerged from the office and walked to Gwen’s workstation. He had to wave to get her attention so she would take off the mufflers she’d snagged from the gun range in a moment of inspiration against the Branx.

“Got a call-out for you.” He gave her the preliminary report he’d filled out based on the boy’s description, and she skimmed it quickly.

“Alright, I’ll go right now.” She caught his arm before he could head back to the office. “You should come too. You haven’t been in the field in days.”

Ianto hesitated, but thought about the nervous boy who’d called him and gave in.

A half hour later, they pulled up to the address the caller had supplied. It was an old, decrepit flat building on a street full of old, decrepit flat buildings, spaced out by alleys filled with dumpsters and discarded rubbish.

Exchanging a glance, Ianto and Gwen left the Range Rover and headed inside the building. Just as he’d promised, the caller was waiting in the lobby, standing a good distance from the door. When they got near enough to see him in the gloom of the room, they saw why: he was roughly the height and shape of any human teenager, but he had cheekbones that look as though they could literally cut, his skin was a dark green and slick like an amphibian’s, and he squinted until they moved away from the light.

“Sorry to call you out,” he said. “We’re usually pretty self-sufficient, but… I don’t know how to deal with this.” Even with his exotic looks, Ianto could see that he felt ashamed.

“It’s not unusual at all,” Gwen said compassionately. “Can we see her?”

The alien led them deeper into the building, the only light from mostly-boarded up windows and the occasional bare bulb. On the way, he explained that his name was unpronounceable, but suggested they call him Jeff. At the center of the building, in a room that was nearly dark, a few other green teenagers congregated around a cot on the floor. When they stepped inside, a few of the aliens slipped out a back door, but two who stayed looked at Ianto and Gwen with hopeful, yet fearful expressions.

Bundled in blankets on the thin mattress was a girl who looked about Jeff’s age. From what Ianto could see in the shadowy room, her facial features backed up Jeff’s story that she was his sister, but her skin was dry and pale. She was shivering under the blankets.

“What did you say she took?” Gwen asked Jeff quietly.

“I don’t know,” the boy answered, eyes locked on his sister. “Something a blowfish gave her… she knows better, really, but it’s been hard lately, what with the trade route shutting down… she just wanted quiet.”

“What do you mean?”

Ianto listened to Gwen questioning Jeff while he knelt beside the cot. He tugged the afflicted girl’s wrist out from her cocoon and felt for a pulse; he was no doctor, but it seemed fast.

“Humans are too loud,” Jeff was explaining. “We can hear, not your thoughts, exactly, but the sound of your minds working. It wasn’t like this on our own planet. Most of the others were born here, but my sister and I came through the Rift a few cycles ago.”

“And how have you been getting on until now?”

“Captain Harkness brought us medicine. But a few months ago, the supply route changed; the ships that sold him the medicine stopped traveling through this system. It’s been hard, but we were handling it. I don’t know what I’ll do if I lose her!”

Ianto turned around and saw Jeff sobbing into Gwen’s shoulder. She gave him an ‘out of my depth’, wide-eyed look. The other aliens who sat by the girl’s bedside watched Ianto silently, and he felt the weight of their expectations settle on his shoulders.

He pulled out his mobile and nodded to Gwen that he needed to make a call. Ignoring her confusion, he stepped into the hallway and dialed Archie.

A few minutes later, went back inside, fuming. “Gwen, I have to go back to the Hub.”

“What?” she muttered, casting a dismayed look at the aliens, who were now sitting in a ring on the floor around their friend. “We can’t leave them!”

“You’re staying here. I’ll send someone over to help you, be ready to show them in.”

“Ianto, tell me what’s going on!” Gwen demanded. “You’re being more cagey than Jack!”

A mention of their missing leader was exactly what Ianto didn’t need at the moment. “Maybe we both have a good reason for not blabbing all over the place,” he snapped. “Just wait here, Gwen.” He strode out, ignoring the fiery glare he could feel hitting his back.

On the drive back to the Hub, he forced himself to drive the speed limit and waited until he’d calmed down slightly to call Owen. “Where are you and Tosh?” he asked bluntly once the call was picked up.

“Getting lunch.”

“And both of you are needed for that?”

“What’s got your knickers in a twist, Teaboy?” Owen asked acerbically.

“You left the Hub unguarded!” Ianto accused. “Anything could happen with the Rift and we’d be blind-sided!”

“Like we never leave the Hub empty? Oh wait, I forgot, you and your boyfriend practically live there.”

“Get back to work, Owen,” Ianto said in his most threatening voice, and Owen was silent until Ianto hung up.

When he reached the Hub, Ianto did a lightning-fast check of the security system, fighting the warring emotions in his chest when it turned up blank. He hurried to the service entrance and unlocked the sliding door. When he opened it, Archie’s ruddy, scowling face was there to meet him. “And what sort of time do you call this, Jones?”

“I’m sorry, I was in the field. The Branx are this way.” He led the sole member of Torchwood Glasgow through the dark tunnels that he’d long since memorized until they reached the vaults. “They don’t speak English,” Ianto shouted to be heard over the elephantine noises. “We have a translator-”

“ _Oi, shut up!_ ” Archie roared.

Instantly, there was silence. Ianto’s ears rang from the force of the shout, and he looked at the five and a half foot man with astonishment. Archie looked smug.

“Now, tell them I’ve got a contract with a junker who’ll get them a car a week.”

Once the information was relayed, the Branx were all too happy to leave Torchwood, which one of them claimed was too chaotic. Ianto was utterly speechless at the accusation from the source of a week’s worth of headaches, but said nothing until they were safely waiting in the back of the moving van Archie seemed to own.

Ianto and Tosh had stored the various items Archie had requested in one of the archive rooms near the service entrance, and it only took a few minutes for Ianto and Archie to shift everything. Ianto stopped the other man when he was about to leave.

“There’s something else.”

~~~~~

Gwen was ready to murder Ianto when she returned to the Hub, demanding to know why she’d had to leave the alien siblings in Archie’s care. Once he explained that Archie had colleagues in Glasgow who could take care of the girl, she started to forgive him. He didn’t mention that those colleagues were aliens themselves, or that they lived on Torchwood’s land in the middle of Scotland.

“I’m sorry for being short and ordering you about,” he told her, honestly ashamed. “I was angry at Owen and Tosh, but that wasn’t your fault.”

“We’re all a bit tense,” she said, and patted his arm. “And you seem more stressed than the rest of us. What’s wrong, Ianto? Tell me,” she prodded him gently.

“It’s just… all this,” he gestured at the paperwork. “I’m really starting to understand why Jack hated it so much.”

“Don’t say that,” Gwen whispered. He looked at her curiously, and she stared at him. “You said ‘hated’. Past tense.”

“Well, I…” Ianto swallowed and stared at the desk- Jack’s desk- in front of him.

Gwen’s arms came around his head. “We all miss him, Ianto. But you can’t give up hope. He’ll come back,” she said, quiet but sure, and Ianto nodded.

“We’ll be here when he does,” he replied.

She smiled and gave him a last squeeze before letting go. “I’ll start my report, I know you care about those,” she teased, and he even smiled.

Tosh and Owen returned with a pair of Weevils an hour later, but Ianto ignored them. He tied up the last few loose ends to cover Archie’s trail, filed the reports on the Branx in the Torchwood database and got back to work on his liaison duties. When the others left for the night, he didn’t say goodbye, but kept working.

It was a long time before he shut down the Hub lights, checked the Rift predictor and the Hub security for the last time, and descended into Jack’s room to sleep.


	7. Chapter 7

Sixteen days since Jack left

Ianto placed another requisition form on the ‘complete’ pile and reached for the next. His hand met the lacquered wood of Jack’s desk and he reached for the next pile instead. Finding nothing again, he looked up, and discovered that the entire right side of the desk was absent of any work. The realization jolted Ianto out of his paperwork-induced trance.

He had a headache.

Ianto blinked several times to see the clock in the dim light of Jack’s desk lamp. The decades old analog clock swam in his vision before focusing: 4:20.

He stared at the face for several seconds before its meaning sunk in. An hour and a half before he’d have to get up for his shift.

He set his pen down on the blotter and opened the cover to Jack’s room under the office. The rubber soles of his shoes as they thumped on the metal ladder and the rustle of his clothes seemed very loud in the pressing silence of the Hub.

Ianto breathed in slowly through his nose. If he concentrated he could still isolate the tantalizing scent of Jack’s pheromones. They were still present from the last time he’d slept with the captain, almost three weeks previously, the night before Jack and Tosh had been pulled through to the 1940’s.

He removed his vest, the jacket deserted on Jack’s chair upstairs. He sat on the thin camp bed and lined his shoes carefully beside it, in easy range in case there was a Rift alert. Pulling the blankets down slowly, he laid down, settling himself within the chilly fabric. Again he breathed in, this time catching the scent on the blankets, and tried to clear his mind.

The wardrobe, Ianto speculated, was in entirely the wrong place. It really ought to be moved into the corner; otherwise it impeded the route from the bed to the bathroom.

~~~~~

_Ianto was drying himself off when Jack started to stare at him. “What?” he said suspiciously. Jack grinned and tugged his towel away, leaving Ianto standing naked in the middle of the captain’s small, underground bathroom._

_“Your skin’s nearly glowing,” he commented. “Don’t you ever tan?”_

_“In Wales?” Ianto snorted. “With this job? The real question is how your skin looks like that. Got a secret tanning booth somewhere in here?” The last few words were unfortunately breathy, since Jack had backed him into the wall. Ianto gasped at the feel of the cold stone against his back and Jack’s body brushing up against his front._

_Jack smirked at the sound. “It’s completely natural, I promise,” he murmured. “See?” He took one of Ianto’s hands and dragged it down his own chest, his abdomen… “No uneven patches, no burns. All me.”_

_Ianto slipped away from the wall toward the door that led to Jack’s bedroom. “I’m not sure I believe you, sir. Why don’t you let me look more closely?”_

_He smiled at Jack’s growl as the captain surged forward to kiss him. They stumbled out of the bathroom and Ianto, walking backwards, caught his thigh on the wardrobe. With a yelp, he fell to the floor, and Jack, plastered to his front, fell on top of him._

_Ianto let out a sharp cry as the wind was knocked out of him, and gasped at the icy floor. “Get off!”_

_Jack only laughed, so Ianto pushed at him, forcing the older man to the floor and rolling atop him. Jack groaned as his skin came into contact with the cold floor. “Revenge,” Ianto muttered into his neck, and Jack chuckled breathily._

_“This is familiar, isn’t it?”_

_Ianto considered, staring into Jack’s eyes. Sensing a more serious turn, Jack’s smile faded. “Ianto?”_

_“I should go.” Ianto stood up, heading to the foot of the bed for his clothes, trying to keep his laughter from shaking his shoulders._

_“No you don’t!”_

_Ianto shouted as he was tackled onto the bed and gave up to the laughter as Jack tried to wrestle him flat._

  
  


 

Ianto supposed that the wardrobe could stay where it was.

By the time the bedside clock ticked to five o’clock, Ianto managed to convince himself that the bed could stay where it was, too, in full view of anyone who happened to be in Jack’s office when the cover was left open.

It was almost funny how a bed that had seemed so hot and cramped when two bodies had occupied it, somehow seemed so large and cold when it was just him. Funny, as in the forces of the universe were laughing at him.

Poor Ianto Jones, he thought darkly. Robbed of his dream job and two lovers in less than a year. Too young to be respected, too old inside to find someone else he could share any of it with. He imagined Jack laughing distantly as he fell asleep.

~~~~~

“Ianto!”

He managed not to flinch, and looked up calmly. “Yes, Gwen?”

She blinked, standing alone at the head of the conference table. “I called your name twice.”

Tosh was staring, concerned, while Owen ignored them

“Sorry, just collecting my thoughts.” Gwen nodded, seemingly placated. Tosh didn’t look convinced, but she let it slide with only a single look.

Ianto remembered he was at the morning briefing. “I’ve finished off all of our outstanding inter-agency requests and have us up-to-date with most of our external communications. I’ve also communicated with the police about Wednesday’s Anubian… incident,” he finished dryly as Gwen blushed.

“How did you find time for all of that?” she asked. “I haven’t even finished the police reports from the first week after Jack-”

There was silence.

“I took the liberty of getting you caught up to the beginning of this week,” Ianto informed her quietly.

“That’s- wow, thank you so much Ianto!” Gwen gushed, before remembering she was meant to be leading the meeting. “Uh- that’s very efficient, especially with all your new responsibilities.”

Ianto managed to limit his facial expressions to a bland smile and an incline of the head.

“So today you’ll be…”

“I’ve got a conference call with UNIT R&D that’ll take an hour or so, about a soundwave defense they’re trying to develop from some scavenged sonic technology, then the weekly update to the tourist office.”

“Does UNIT want me to collaborate?” Tosh asked nervously.

Knowing what was behind that expression on her face only deepened the pit of anger and pain in his stomach. “I figured you’ve got enough on your plate, and the plans aren’t very far along yet. I should be able to give enough advice to keep them occupied for a month or so.”

“I guess that’s everything then,” Gwen wrapped up, beginning to collect her notes. Owen was already out the door.

As Ianto tidied up the morning’s coffee, Tosh sidled over, twisting her fingers. “Ianto… are you alright? I don’t think I’ve seen you look this tired in months.”

In response to her quiet, kind tone Ianto gave an honest answer. “I stayed up most of the night working on the backlog.”

His back to her, Ianto could only hear Tosh’s sigh. “You do so much around here, and I know we’d fall apart without you, but honestly, Ianto. You’ve got to take some time for yourself.”

He felt a sudden rumble of the emotion he’d been holding in, like an underwater volcano exploding out of him upon the least guilty person around. “I am an adult, Tosh,” he said calmly. “I’ll do what I want.”

Ignoring her hurt expression, Ianto stormed away.

~~~~~

He stayed in Jack’s office and the tourist office as much as he could, taking out his anger by glaring at the piles of budget-related paperwork. Once he calmed down enough to steal lunch from the fridge and make a fresh pot of coffee, Ianto felt both guilty and grateful that Tosh was nowhere to be seen.

When he surfaced at seven, planning to order dinner, the team was gathering their things to leave.

“We’re going for a curry Ianto, why don’t you come with?” offered Gwen.

He smiled tightly, avoiding looking at Tosh, who was avoiding looking at him. “Thank you, but I have plenty to do here.”

Gwen smiled sympathetically. “Come on pet, you’ve hardly left the Hub in days.”

“I’ve been busy,” he replied stiffly, moving toward Jack’s office.

“More like you’ve been moonin’,” Owen called.

Ianto spun around and glared, catching the warning looks Gwen and Tosh were shooting the medic. “I’m not mooning.”

Owen pulled a sarcastic face and nodded. “Of course not. You’re just working in Jack’s office and sleeping in Jack’s bed and acting every inch the abandoned puppy dog, like when he comes back he’ll be proud of you.” He shrugged on his coat and sneered. Ianto couldn’t move. “Well we’ve been abandoned too, and you don’t see us holing ourselves up in here. Get a life Teaboy, or an abandoned puppy is all you’ll ever be.”

“Owen,” Tosh murmured.

“No!” Owen yelled. “I’m gonna have my say! He’s just afraid that if he leaves, it’s real. Well it already is fucking real, and you can’t change it!” He was shouting directly at Ianto now, his dark eyes seeming to absorb the Hub’s lights. Ianto was frozen in place, though by what, he didn’t know.

“This isn’t a dream, Teaboy, it’s real bloody life, and you’re gonna hate it. Welcome to the real world!”

He stormed out, all violent, jerky motions. Gwen shot a quick look and gesture at Toshiko before she left as well. Tosh stayed behind.

Ianto missed the exchange. He’d closed his eyes, replaying Owen’s tirade in his head.

“Ianto?” Tosh whispered.

He replayed his thoughts that morning as he’d dressed in the locker room. He’d been storing his suits in there so they wouldn’t invade Jack’s room, so it would be the same as when his lover had been there. So he could pretend nothing had changed.

He opened his eyes. Tosh was standing a meter away, unsure of her reception.

“I’m afraid-” He cleared his throat. “I’m afraid that if I leave, I’ll… forget him. Forget everything,” he finished quietly, voice raw.

Tosh came forward and tentatively hugged him. He returned it, holding them close together. “You don’t have to give up hope just because you move on a bit. You don’t have to let him go to leave the Hub.”

“What if he comes back and there’s no one here?” Ianto whispered into her hair. His voice was just on the edge of cracking.

“I can set up more monitors. We won’t miss him,” she promised.

They stayed there for several more minutes, until Ianto’s heaving breaths settled. When they pulled back, each pretended not to notice the other wiping their face.

“You going to come out with us then?” Tosh asked, her voice rough and soft in the way of someone who’d just recovered from a bout of sadness.

Ianto cleared his throat. “Not tonight, I want to…put some things away. And Tosh,” he caught her eyes. “I’m sorry about this morning. It was uncalled for.”

“Already forgiven,” she smiled. “Get some sleep?”

After she left, Ianto descended into Jack’s room. He removed his shaving kit and amenities from the bathroom, his towel from beside the tub, the last few articles of clothing from the wardrobe. He took a last look around the small room, then climbed up the ladder. He retrieved the key from one of the secret compartments in Jack’s desk and locked the cover in place.

At eight forty-five, Ianto put the Hub on standby and left it, dark and empty, for his own flat.

~~~~~

Seventeen days since Jack left

Ianto spent the morning at Flat Holm, discussing a few patients who needed special requisitions with Helen. After spending so long in the Hub, it was a relief to feel the sea breeze and to have an actual conversation. Ianto returned to the Hub regretting his temporary isolation and swearing he wouldn’t get so lost in his own head again.

Determined to apologize to his colleagues- or at least Tosh and Gwen- for his behavior, Ianto brought croissants in for lunch along with lattes from one of the flashy shops in the mall. He chatted with Gwen for a while about Rhys’ parents, finding that they reminded him of his own grandparents, and managed to suggest some ways to pacify Rhys’ snooty mother.

He was dragged away by a call from Torchwood’s official UNIT liaison, a man Ianto actually hadn’t had much contact with. To his surprise, the man just wanted to formally thank him for getting all of Torchwood’s outstanding communications completed. Bemused, Ianto accepted the thanks and hung up feeling as though he’d traded pleasantries with a carnivore.

Gwen came up to him when the call was over. “Are you alright, pet?”

“Fine.” Ianto shook it off.

“Well, I was wondering if there was anything I could do to help you.” Ianto looked at her curiously. “You’ve been so swamped the last few days, and you still finished my reports.”

“You’ve been busy, too,” Ianto defended, though he couldn’t have guessed what she’d been busy with. She had been busy, though, he’d noticed.

“Not as much as you. And anyway, I’ve got the afternoon free, so what do you need?”

Ianto thought hard, and came to a confusing conclusion. “I think I’ve finished, actually. I’m completely up-to-date. Guess the paperwork binge was good for something.”

Gwen laughed in astonishment. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone at Torchwood claim to be finished with their paperwork. You’re a marvel, Ianto.”

The liaison narrowed his eyes. “Of course, if you really want to help, I need to start compiling for the budget. You’ve been saving your receipts, I hope?”

“Oh God, why did I ask? Yes, I’ll pull them up, and I’ll see what Owen and Tosh have on the main server.”

“Thank you,” Ianto said fervently. He’d really not been looking forward to trying to convince the others to help him, but if their elected leader was on board, they’d at least have to make a start.

“It’s no problem, Ianto,” Gwen told him kindly. “We’ve all got to pitch in, yeah?”

After a few hours on the budget, Ianto was truly done. He hadn’t been this tired since that first week, when he’d been stealing a few hours whenever he could. Apparently one good night’s rest wasn’t enough to overcome all that tossing and turning on Jack’s cot. However, Ianto knew that if he went home early, he’d just worry about all the work he could be getting ahead on. Either that, or he’d start thinking about Jack, and he shied away from even considering that.

He wandered about for a while, trying to think of another solution, but gave in to necessity. He went down to the medical bay, where Owen was- for once- working diligently on his computer. “Do you have any sleep aids?” he asked once he’d gotten the man’s attention.

“Getting to sleep, staying asleep, nightmares, night terrors, or some unidentified virus I’ll have to cure in ten minutes flat with the contents of someone’s bathroom cabinet?”

“Getting to sleep,” Ianto answered, blushing. “And nightmares.”

Owen inspected him for a few moments, then looked up toward the main Hub. Curiously, Ianto followed his gaze, but he didn’t see anyone.

“Alright, look here.” Owen moved to his pill cabinet and pulled out a small, unmarked bottle from the back of a shelf. “These are guaranteed nine and a half hours of sleep. Take one with a full meal and a glass of water, wake up completely refreshed.” He held up one round, blue pill.

Immediately suspicious, Ianto gave the bottle a wary look. “And this won’t put me at risk for some strange alien disease, or three different types of cancer?”

“You’re really funny, Teaboy, funniest I’ve ever met,” Owen said flatly. “They’re Jack’s. No side effects that I’ve found, but they work.”

“Jack’s?” Ianto took the pill and examined it. He wondered if this was one of the medicines Jack had bought from the intergalactic suppliers.

“Never told me why he had them, just said they were only to be used when needed.”

“How did you get them?” Ianto asked.

Owen closed the bottle and put it back in its place, then closed the cabinet. He stood there for a moment as though lost in thought. “Haven’t needed them in years. Not since I started at Torchwood.” He looked at Ianto, and his relaxed expression disappeared. “What are you still doing here? Go watch a movie or something, pretend to be normal for a while.”

Ianto took his cue, and left.

He didn’t watch a movie, but he spent the rest of the afternoon and early evening refilling his refrigerator and cleaning and doing laundry, the basic necessities that made his flat feel like a place he could live in at least a few nights a week. He watched telly for an hour or so, but couldn’t quite get into anything. It was like he’d forgotten how to just sit and watch.

Instead, he pulled an old beloved book down from a shelf and read until ten. When he yawned and looked up, Ianto realized that he hadn’t felt so relaxed in weeks. He got a glass of water and swallowed Owen’s pill, then went to bed. He fell asleep in minutes.


	8. Chapter 8

Eighteen days since Jack left

Ianto woke up feeling like a new man, and thanked Jack silently. He went into work and actually made some progress on the budget, then ate lunch with the team, who for once managed to joke around and talk without it devolving into an argument.

After an exciting afternoon of budget review and conference calls (UNIT was in a tizzy over the latest rumors of alien contact from America’s CIA, which Ianto had to deny about a dozen times), the real fun started around seven at night. Tosh’s predictor had shown them the Rift was going to let something through, but it wasn’t very large, so the area couldn’t be specified. When it did come through, Tosh tracked it to a car-crushing yard west of the main body of Cardiff.

Owen drove and bickered with Gwen in the passenger seat while Tosh and Ianto did actual work in the back. Ianto was running a scan through the Archives with the information Tosh had already given him, while the tech expert was trying to find and identify the creature.

“I can’t track the Rift signature, this creature doesn’t emanate the latent Rift emissions that most other spec-”

“Cut to the chase, Tosh!” Owen interjected, swerving a corner.

Slightly flustered, Tosh pushed her glasses up her nose before continuing. “I’m tracking it by the CCTV, it looks like…”

“What is it, Tosh?” Gwen’s sharp Welsh tones jolted the other woman to speech.

“It looks like a man with a fish for a head.”

Ianto looked up sharply. “That sounds like a blowfish.”

“The same one that gave Jeff’s sister those drugs?” Gwen asked him sharply.

“Could be…” Ianto typed quickly on the Range Rover’s built-in computers. “The archive entry says they come through every five years or so, which is relatively common,” he read aloud. “They usually take the first opportunity to access some sort of Earth drug, which doesn’t help their naturally paranoid natures. They’re also strong psychics, though they tend to babble when under the influence.”

“Does it say how to take them out?” Owen asked.

Ianto checked. “No, we don’t seem to have anything like the Weevil spray for them. If they can be subdued, they’re left to detox in a cell, then they can be sent back through the Rift. They seem to take hostages a lot,” Ianto read, somewhat confused. “But if they’re in a manic state from drug use they can’t be talked down. Torchwood has had to kill several in the past,” Ianto finished, already expecting the horrified look in Gwen’s eyes.

He wasn’t disappointed.

“That’s terrible!” Gwen gasped. “I’m sure they could be brought in just like human criminals. Did anyone even try to reason with them?”

“I don’t care what kind of reason it’s got, if it’s got my throat in its claws I want someone to shoot it in the jollies, got it?” Owen retorted in his usual gentle manner.

“We’re here,” Tosh spoke up, stopping the argument from progressing. They pulled into the center of an area surrounded by stacks of cars, where a berth was cleared for cars to be dragged to the crusher.

Tosh stayed in the Range Rover while the rest of them split up into the stacks of automobiles, some of them six cars high, and tried to circle in on the blowfish. Tosh gave them directions, but it was ten minutes of failed cornering later when the tech told them she’d lost the blowfish on the cameras. “It’s like he vanished. I don’t see him any- he’s here! Help!” she suddenly screamed. There were muffled thumps and metallic noises through the coms, along with cries from Tosh and someone’s harsh, wet breathing. The team raced back toward the center of the yard, handguns out and safeties off.

Owen appeared from a stack in front of the Range Rover, while Gwen emerged, breathless, on the vehicle’s left side. Ianto came up behind her a moment later. “You see them?” he whispered.

“You’re on the wrong side,” Owen muttered through the com. “They’re on the right. He’s got a gun to her head and he can see me here.”

Ianto saw Gwen’s panic-stricken expression and put a hand on her shoulder to calm her down. “Go back the way you came and double around to the other side. Cover them with Owen, I’ll try to sneak up behind.”

She nodded and started jogging quietly. Ianto waited until she was out of sight before peeking out at the SUV and slowly starting to creep across the open stretch, using what little machinery was available for cover.

“I know you’re there, little humans. Thinking you can hide from me. You should know better than that.”

Ianto ignored it, continuing to move quietly. Maybe it was just talking to Owen?

“I can hear you hiding, secretary, just like you always do. At least your colleague here has the courage to pretend to be something he’s not, instead of pretending not to be.”

Ianto gave up, it was obvious the thing knew he was there. He scurried over to a different spot of cover, one that put him in view of the blowfish and Tosh. Its face was green and it had long, fleshy, whisker-like things hanging from it’s face. Tosh was in a chokehold, and obviously a tight one; her hands were tugging the arm away from her neck, but she was wheezing slightly and her face was red, hair falling loosely around her face. Its other arm was holding a large gun to the side of her head.

Her expression was contained, professional: terrified, but conscious of the fact that panicking wouldn’t help her. Ianto wasted half a second admiring her bravery. “I’ve no idea what you mean,” he said to the alien, trying to sound braver than he really felt.

“Hiding behind your suits, your coffee and your polite smiles, it’s sickening!” the blowfish spat. He jerked his arm and Tosh let out an involuntary whimper. “The doctor there, if you can still be called that when you kill more than you save. But he pretends to do good, at least.” he snarled nastily.

“I don’t think he’s on any drugs, the scanner’s turning up empty,” Gwen whispered through the coms while the alien blustered. They’d long since mastered having two conversations at once.

“Tranq him?” Owen murmured. He was a dozen feet behind and to Ianto’s left.

“I don’t have it on me, and the range is too far for you,” Ianto replied.

“I could get closer,” Gwen argued.

“He’s psychic, he’d sense you coming.” Ianto adjusted his aim. The blowfish had a big head, and most of it was visible next to Tosh’s. But he was still almost forty feet away, and Ianto wasn’t as sure of his marksmanship as he’d like to be. Jack hadn’t started teaching him until a week before the Beacons, and most of their recent sessions hadn’t lasted that long before turning to… other pursuits.

As if sensing his doubt, the blowfish spoke again.

“But none of you are being truly honest, are you?” he sneered. “All of you, acting like you can handle it, like you can take the pressure. None of you know what to do, how to survive without someone to protect you, but you won’t admit it.”

[ ](http://smg.photobucket.com/user/airaspade/media/tw-blowfish-4-png.png.html)

  
The blowfish tugged Tosh back, closer to the SUV. Ianto and Owen followed the movement with their gun. “This little dearie here’s been hiding something from the rest of you, did you know that?” He jabbed the gun against Tosh’s head, causing a quiet gasp. “Well, she’s not the only one. A whole jumble of lies, and no one to point them out. Falling apart, no, falling in, into each other without him in the center to keep you upright, aren’t you?”

He heard a tiny intake of breath over the coms as Gwen realized who the alien was talking about. Ianto swallowed, but didn’t let his aim waver.

“Him, the enigmatic, magnetic… your leader. Or to you,” Ianto saw the blowfish turn away from him and Owen’s breath sped up for a few seconds as the alien look right at him, “the prickly, unfeeling, over-feeling scrawny boy, the father figure you can’t admit you want, who deserted you just like your real dad.”

Owen’s breathing was sounding dangerously short. “Owen, you’ve got to ignore it, ignore him!” Gwen said imploringly over the com.

The blowfish violently spun, still keeping Toshiko’s body between him and Ianto, the open SUV door providing extra cover from Owen. Gwen ducked out of sight but it was obviously too late, she’d been spotted. The blowfish grinned as much as it could with it’s odd lip formation.

“To the brave-hearted, pretty fool, your hero, the one who could do no wrong, until he did, of course, because he’s not nearly as perfect as you’d like to believe.” Gwen didn’t respond, but her silence was more telling than anything else.

The green alien backed up until he was right next to the SUV, speaking quietly to Tosh. The other three could only hear him because of the woman’s com unit.

“To you, my sweetheart, he was the kind savior who valiantly extended his protection, and now he’s left you defenseless. When are you going to tell your supposed friends how close you are to being dragged back to the hole he found you in?” The cackle was loud enough that they could all hear it without the coms, and Tosh’s pained gasping was audible as well. The blowfish turned back to Ianto, glaring into his eyes.

“And to you, the slut, who can’t even figure out which of your lovers you betrayed, you can hardly think of anything you wouldn’t do to please him, can you?” The blowfish laughed while dragging Tosh like a shield, closer to Ianto. Ianto breathed shakily, trying to ignore the words coming out of the alien’s mouth and concentrate on his target getting bigger. “Now that he’s abandoned you, what have you got to keep you here, except cleaning up after his messes like always and keeping his secrets from the other servants?”

Ianto saw his chance. The blowfish had walked forward, nearly thirty feet from him, and while it wasn’t the best range, it was as good as he was likely to get. When the green head moved just a bit to the side to sneer at him, he took the shot.

~~~~~

“Ianto?”

He looked up, dropping his hands from where they’d been holding up his forehead moments before. “Yeah Gwen?” He didn’t even try to smile. They’d both know it was fake.

Gwen’s sympathetic, comforting expression strengthened as she leaned against Jack’s desk to take his hand. Something in Ianto flinched when he realized it was the same way he’d sat with Jack after John’s suicide on Christmas.

“Do you want to see her?” Gwen asked.

Ianto sighed, looking at the floor.

“It wasn’t your fault, pet,” Gwen said compassionately. “You did the best you could.”

“It wasn’t good enough.” Ianto whispered. He’d scrubbed at his hands relentlessly. He wanted to laugh about Lady MacBeth, but even though his hands hadn’t even been touched by blood he could still see Tosh in his mind, laying out on the dusty ground of the junkyard, Owen shouting and thick redness pouring out of her…

“Ianto, you can’t blame yourself.”

He snorted, half in disagreement, half in irony. He could remember a time when his sister had said almost those exact words. For a moment, he was glad Gwen was Welsh. Hearing his name from Owen or Tosh or even Jack held a different feel than when someone said it like his family did… used to. He really should try to reconnect with Rhiannon, he hadn’t talked to her for longer than the ‘I’m still alive, we’re still related’ niceties since before Canary Wharf… and there were more memories he didn’t need right now. So much for distracting himself with happier thoughts.

“Ianto?”

He looked up instantly, snapped out of his hazy zoning. Tosh stood in the doorway, leaning against the frame and supported by Owen. The medic’s expression threatened him with great pain if he didn’t act right, and Gwen stood up.

“I’ll let you two talk,” she said, and stepped aside to let Tosh and Owen in the room before heading to her workstation.

Owen helped Tosh sit down next in one of the desk chairs, and Ianto hurried around to sit beside her. She relaxed gratefully into the couch, limbs still shaking. Owen held her wrist for a moment, checking her pulse, then straightened. “I’m gonna be back here in five minutes, you got that?” he asked seriously. Tosh managed a wan smile and a small nod; Ianto didn’t respond.

“Right, then.” Owen looked almost out of place for a moment, making a stuttered move toward Tosh, then abruptly spun around and walked out, grumbling under his breath.

Ianto closed his eyes, not wanting to look at his friend and see the clean bandage that covered the side of her head, where the blood had gushed out like a faucet he’d forgotten to turn off.

Tosh touched his arm, and he looked toward her.

She was pale, her hair hanging limply in the hasty pony-tail Owen had managed since she’d been too weak to do it herself. There was still a bit of water dripping down onto the couch, from Gwen carefully washing the blood out of her hair. And there was the white gauze on her temple covering the evil-looking gash where his bullet had grazed her.

“Thank you,” she said quietly.

He started to cry, and they hugged and whispered to each other for ten uninterrupted minutes.


	9. Chapter 9

Nineteen days since Jack left

Ianto had been thankful that the Rift was quiet. They were all in a bit of shock, all of them busying themselves in various odds and ends that had gone undone in the weeks since Jack’s disappearance. Even Ianto set aside the budget for immediate practicalities like cleaning the Range Rover and restocking the kitchen. Around lunch time, he brought Chinese to the conference room and the others trickled in, almost accidentally.

If Ianto had known this was going to come up, he’d have arranged a fake Rift spike.

“I just want to forget it,” Tosh said quietly, slumped in her seat and staring at the table. Ianto’s eyes flickered over her face, concerned. It had only been last night that she’d lost all that blood (don’t think about that, she’s right, don’t even think about it) and if it weren’t for her unashamed use of wide eyes and wobbly lips he and Owen would never have allowed her into work, even though she promised to do nothing more strenuous than type and drink tea.

“I know, and I’m not saying I don’t agree,” Gwen said in a placating tone. “I just think there are some things that need to be addressed.”

“Like what?” Owen spat. “You want us all to talk about how it made us feel?” he asked scathingly. “What exactly about last night do you think we should talk about?”

Ianto guessed that the medic’s unusual vehemence was due to his own embarrassment and the fear he’d felt at seeing his teammate hurt; Ianto didn’t know if Owen felt anything for Tosh like what she did for him, but he definitely cared for her as a friend and colleague at the very least, and he obviously would have hated having to treat her.

At the same time as he ignored Owen’s prattishness, he had to agree with the sentiment.

“We need to discuss the fact that we’re all apparently lying to each other and feel helpless without Jack,” Gwen stated frankly.

There was silence in the conference room. Gwen was staring at the other three, so she was the only one to know that they were all avoiding looking at each other. “We haven’t talked about this,” she said softly. “We’ve discussed what to do and what we’re thinking, but as Torchwood agents, not as friends, not as people. We’ve been pretending we don’t hurt, and we can’t do that and stay sane, stay human.”

She looked at all of them, huffing when they still refused to meet her eyes. “Fine then, I’ll start. I miss Jack. I’m angry that he left us, that he didn’t tell us he was going to. I want him to come back.”

She waited, the silence ringing in their ears. After a full minute, Tosh whispered. “I’m afraid.”

Ianto glanced at her from his coffee and wasn’t too surprised to see her eyes welling up even as they refused to move from her lap.

“Afraid of what?” Gwen asked softly. She’d let the fight drain away when her ruse had worked, it seemed.

Tosh did that thing where she tried to sniff without making it obvious that she was crying. Ianto looked away modestly. “I’m not sure he’ll come back.”

“Why would he?” Owen said bluntly. “After what we did?” His voice was rough, like he too was holding back tears. But wasn’t that just so Owen, to mask his tears with anger? Probably couldn’t cry without raging, a mental defense as much as a prideful one.

“He loved us. I mean- he loves us!” Gwen stuttered. Ianto felt a quick surge of ironic amusement at Gwen repeating his own mistake. The thought nearly made him lose all hope. “He’s coming back!”

“Ianto, what do you think?” she asked, a tad desperately as it seemed like she was losing her momentum.

Ianto considered the question carefully. Jack left, in a big blue box. The hand was gone. That meant the Doctor. The Doctor meant that time and space weren’t really obstacles. If Jack felt like coming back, he would be able to pick and choose his entry time. It had been nineteen days.

“I don’t know.”

“And you wouldn’t tell us if you did, would you?” Owen snapped, sneering. “That thing said you were keeping secrets from us. What do you know?” He leaned over the table threateningly.

Ianto looked at Gwen, expecting her to intercept Owen as usual, but she was looking interested. At least she had the scruples to look guilty too. “I’ve already told you all I know about the Doctor.”

“Then what was the blowfish talkin’ about? Jack’s secrets, it said. Well he’s gone, Teaboy!” Owen shouted, his harsh breathing filling up the silence. “And you can’t protect him anymore! What are you hiding?”

The withered forms of Flat Holm’s inhabitants were nearly visible in his sight. The trust in Jack’s eyes, as Ianto packed away John’s body, their faces the same mix of red and grey. Peaceful wooden houses, hidden away among pine forests. “Nothing you need to know,” he said quietly.

Owen growled, face red with rage. “And who gave you the right to decide that! Just because Jack fucked you up the arse you can’t take over his dirty work-”

“That’s enough, Owen!” Gwen finally interjected, blushing mildly.

Owen laughed and turned his anger to the seated woman. “Did he shag you too Tosh? Is that what you’re lyin’ about?”

“Stop.” Ianto stood from his seat, his voice deepening with anger. Jokes and jibes, even those nasty insults he could ignore, but if Owen was going to make allegations against Tosh…

“I agree with Ianto, that was out of line, Owen,” Gwen tried to mediate. She turned a pleading gaze on Ianto, though, since Tosh had just curled up more into her chair. “But we do need to stop hiding from each other. We can’t work together if we’re not honest.” She waited, and when no one immediately shouted in anger, she said in a small voice. “Can you tell us, Tosh?”

Ianto was concerned to see the computer specialist’s shoulders shaking. “I… It was b-” she stuttered, breathing quickly. She held her breath for a few moments before starting again. “Before I worked here, I was at the Ministry of Defense.” Ianto felt an awful pang of foreboding.

“I loved my job, and I was the best employee. But I had to, I didn’t have a choice,” she was breathing tighter again and Ianto sat back down beside her.

“You don’t have to talk about that, not if it’s what I think it is,” he assured. When her dark wide eyes looked up at him, Ianto took advantage of Gwen and Owen being unable to see his face at this angle and mouthed ‘UNIT?’ She looked surprised, but nodded.

“No! Tell us!” Owen demanded. He slammed an open hand on the conference table, causing the cups and dishes to rattle.. “I’m fed up with all the secrets around here!”

Ianto turned his dark gaze on the medic. “This is private, and doesn’t concern you.” He turned back to Tosh and spoke gently, “I’m taking care of it.”

Her face filled with gratitude and she slid off the chair into his arms, hugging him tightly. Gwen and Owen were silent, and when Ianto glared up at them over Tosh’s shoulder he was gratified to find that they both looked rather guilty. Gwen shook her head, sitting down, and Owen followed suit after a while.

When Tosh pulled away, tears streaking her blushing cheeks, Ianto cleared his throat. “What I think we need to do,” he stated, “is learn to trust each other. What Tosh is not disclosing is an issue that is under control and is not to be brought up again without her permission,” he said firmly. “The things I am withholding,” he nodded at Owen’s ‘I-knew-it’ face, “are Torchwood business, and highly classified. You don’t need to worry about it and frankly,” he raised his voice over Gwen’s disapproving cry, “I don’t want to expose you to some of it. You’ll be happier not knowing.”

His words left the conference room menacingly silent, with three sets of eyes looking at him as if trying to decipher what could possibly be more damaging than what they dealt with daily. “Please trust my judgment in this.”

After a searching look and a long silence, Gwen nodded. “I think that’s enough business for today.” She reached for the cold remains of her Chinese food and started tidying up. “Let’s get back to work.”

Tosh quietly gathered her things and deposited them in the trash bin on her way out. Ianto followed her quickly, but didn’t miss the suspicious glare from Owen as he passed by.

It seemed that Owen hadn’t missed the fact that the blowfish had mentioned more than one secret.


	10. Chapter 10

Twenty days since Jack left

Ianto was woken at 6:12 am by a politely phrased demand from UNIT. He drove back to the Hub half-awake and signed for a package from an angry-looking, taciturn courier. Once inside the Hub, he opened the package and read the ‘highly classified’ information.

Then he called Owen.

When the medic appeared, rumpled-looking and glaring like he was planning Ianto’s murder, Ianto held up his hands. “I didn’t have a choice. UNIT brought out the big guns.”

“Starbucks gift card?”

“A favor.”

Owen did a double-take. “Now _that_ is worth getting out of bed for. Why am I here?”

“Last night, there was an assassination attempt on one of the three top chiefs at UNIT,” Ianto explained, spreading the papers he’d been sent over the autopsy table. “This chemical was involved.” He held up a tiny vial of a clear, somewhat oily liquid. “They need our help to determine what it is.”

“And they can’t do it themselves?”

Ianto referenced one of the classified sheets. “UNIT scientists have determined that the chemical is of alien biological origin. Torchwood has an extensive database in alien biology, mostly due to London’s… experiments,” he finished distastefully.

Owen rolled his eyes.

“Also, they’ve got all their best xenobiologists on this, but they know you’ve had years of hands-on experience, and even though Jack held back most of our records, you’ve got a reputation.” For all that he’d honestly wanted to kill the doctor on about a half dozen instances during his tenure at Torchwood, Ianto couldn’t help feeling pride in Owen’s success. He even managed to smile at the insanely smug look that spread over Owen’s face.

“Of course I have. Now. Get out of my lab, Teaboy, I’ve got work to do.”

It was Ianto’s turn to roll his eyes. “You can’t tell Gwen or Tosh about this,” he warned. “They’ll probably find out by tomorrow, but UNIT doesn’t want anyone to know who’s not cleared.”

“Fine, whatever.” Owen was already pouring over the testing results from UNIT.

Ianto shook his head and retreated to his office, where he immediately had to field a call reassuring UNIT that yes, their ‘best man’ was on the job. He hung up feeling annoyed, and sat down to begin work at the time he usually woke up, already with a headache.

When the women came in to work a few hours later, Ianto had to explain that Owen was working on something urgent and top-secret, and not to distract him. The spy-movie effect he was casually going for was ruined slightly by a series of quick-succession explosions and Owen’s whooping in the background.

They settled down to work, but by lunchtime, Ianto had gotten almost no work done, since UNIT was calling every twenty minutes with demands for updates from Owen and requests of Torchwood’s sky- and Rift-scanning equipment.

It was lucky they were watching it, because around noontime, the Rift fluctuated unexpectedly. Ianto and Gwen hovered behind Tosh’s computer while she tried to make sense of the readouts. “Nothing came through… it’s just a wave of energy. I think we’re clear.”

At that moment, Gwen’s mobile rang. After a few seconds of listening to the other line, her eyes filled with dread. “The Weevils are coming out, lots of them. Tosh, come with me, we’ll start bringing them in.”

“Wait, I’ll go,” Ianto interrupted. “Tosh shouldn’t be in the field, she’s still injured.”

“It was just a nick, Ianto,” Tosh said gently. “Head wounds bleed a lot. Owen’s already cleared me.”

Ianto shook his head. “We need you to keep watching the Rift, and UNIT needs us to keep scanning. I’m sorry, but I don’t know the software as well as you.” Tosh nodded, but Ianto could tell she was nervous. “Go ask Owen to read you in.”

Gwen grumbled good-naturedly about being the only one not in on the secret as they drove toward the first hotspot. Ianto was actually starting to laugh when UNIT called again.

It took him fifteen minutes to get their liaison off the line this time, since he had to tell him he’d authorized Tosh to know about the situation, and then he had to convince him that she would be an asset. When he finally hung up, they could see the Weevils through the windshield, stumbling about and crooning toward the sky.

Four very easy Weevil displacements later, they returned to the Range Rover and Gwen started them toward the next hotspot. She glanced over at him curiously. “You’ve gotten very good at talking to UNIT.”

“I’ve had more practice than I ever wanted,” Ianto quipped.

“Are they still giving you trouble?”

“No. I think they just got demanding when they realized I knew my way around the filing system, unlike Jack, and could actually get them the information they needed. Jack had a backlog of requisitions several inches thick.”

Gwen didn’t speak for a while, and Ianto took another call, this time from Whitehall, which he directed to UNIT instead. When he hung up, Gwen had looked away from the road to give him a hard look.

“You’re talking about him in the past tense again.”

“Am I?” Ianto murmured, fiddling with his cell.

“Yes, you are.” She waited for a response, but he just looked out the window. “Have you given up? Don’t you want him back?”

“Of course I do,” he said quietly.

“Then… why won’t you look at me?”

Ianto looked at her, but he refused to show her how he felt. “Look at what happened two days ago. If I hadn’t been so shaken by the blowfish talking about Jack, I wouldn’t have-”

“You can’t blame yourself for that, Ianto!” Gwen told him insistently. “It was a nightmare of a shot.”

“Maybe I can’t,” Ianto allowed, although he disagreed, “but that doesn’t mean I can let it happen again. We’re Torchwood. We have to be at the top of our game, and if… mooning over Jack is going to get someone killed, then we have to stop.”

There was silence in the car while Gwen digested his words. “But only on duty, right?”

“I don’t expect miracles.” They shared a smile.

As they kept driving, Ianto considered the strange relationship between he and Gwen. They’d always gotten along as colleagues, and Gwen was generally nice and he was generally polite to everyone, so they had a sort of camaraderie. Underneath that, they’d never really felt comfortable around one another. Ianto wasn’t used to interacting with the women his… something, Jack, had obvious feelings for, and they’d never really connected over anything. Ianto wondered if it had been his unwillingness to get to know Gwen, which was rooted in his complex feelings for Jack, that had stopped them from really understanding each other.

If Jack’s leaving meant that they could start being friends, then maybe… well, it wasn’t worth it, but maybe it wasn’t all bad.

~ ~ * ~ ~

Ianto and Gwen returned to the Hub, having returned all the Weevils to the sewers and being exhausted for it. However, their tired expressions turned into smiles when they found Owen and Tosh leaning together on the couch, Owen choking with laughter, Tosh breathless from the same.

“What’s all this, then?” Gwen inquired, sitting on the couch beside them.

“I solved it,” Owen proclaimed. “Broke the chemical strain and figured out the coding of the antidote. I am, truly, the greatest alien doctor on the planet!”

“Well done.” Ianto led the women in a short round of applause, to which Owen gave a few bows.

“Thank you, thank you, but I couldn’t have done it without the help of this brilliant woman right here,” Owen waved to a heavily blushing Tosh. For once, there was not a trace of irony in his voice, and his smile looked truly happy.

Ianto and Gwen cheered again.

“This calls for a celebration,” Gwen said with a grin. “Night out, on Torchwood?” She looked at Ianto with a pleading expression.

Ianto felt a pang in his chest, remembering all the times one of them had begged Jack to cover their night out. Although he’d rarely given in completely, Jack normally at least bought a few rounds even though he never drank anything.

Ianto couldn’t bring himself to say no and remind them all of Jack. Not at the end of a tough, successful day.

“Just this once,” he said with a rueful smile. “Or Downing Street will be getting an itemized budget of our alcohol preferences.”

The others went to get their coats and Ianto went into his office to make sure he hadn’t forgotten anything vital. He checked all the systems before shutting them down, but he noticed a flashing email marked high importance.

_Mr. Jones,_

_I’m very sorry to tell you that Dakota Middlesex took her own life this afternoon. We never allow her any sharp objects, as you know, but she stole another patient’s compact mirror and smashed it. She slit her wrists in the shower. The other patients are distraught. If you could please come out and spend the night, all of us would be very grateful._

_Helen_

Ianto sat heavily in his chair, eyes burning as a memory tore its way out of his subconscious. He recalled the case of Dennis Reid, a man Ianto had barely known from the canteen at Torchwood London. They’d met a few times after the Battle, in groups, and Dennis had never stopped having night terrors and paranoid attacks. When he’d had a nervous breakdown and killed himself, none of the other survivors were surprised.

Ianto couldn’t bear the thought that Dakota, a fifteen years old who was the youngest resident of Flat Holm Island, had been as haunted by her experiences through the Rift as Dennis had been by the Battle.

He shot back an email to Helen and slowly put on his coat. When he emerged from his office, the others were already waiting to head out.

“I can’t go,” Ianto told them, his voice hoarse and shaky. “But, here.” He offered the midnight blue credit card with the Torchwood T emblazoned.

Gwen reached out, but took his hand instead of the card. “What’s the matter?” she asked seriously.

“It’s, uh… something’s happened,” he choked out.

“Family?” Gwen said gently.

“No, it’s Torchwood.” Ianto gulped and tried to pull himself together, but Dakota’s face swam in his mind and he couldn’t help but wonder if there was anything he could have done. Dennis hadn’t had a chance at recovery, but Dakota had seemed to be improving. Why had she…?

“One of those things you can’t tell us about?”

Ianto looked at Owen. He and Tosh were watching solemnly, but tonight, the medic didn’t sound accusatory.

He nodded. “Yeah. But right now, I’m glad you don’t know.” He sniffed and shook his head. “I have to go.”

“Is there anything we can do?” Tosh asked.

Ianto gave it serious thought. “Go out,” he decided. “Have a good time, really. Just… enjoy your lives.”

“You sound like Jack,” Owen said softly.

Ianto couldn’t even find the space inside to feel bad that he’d reminded them of the man they’d all been avoiding thinking about. “Well... maybe he knew what he was talking about. I’ll see you all tomorrow.” He pulled away from Gwen’s hand and headed out through the cog wheel door.


	11. Chapter 11

Twenty-one days since Jack left

When Ianto got into the Hub at ten past eleven and mildly hungover, he found Gwen in his office going through his paperwork.

“Just thought I’d help out,” she told him, wide eyes examining his rumpled suit. “We did know how long you’d be gone, and I know you’d hate to fall behind.”

“Thanks.” He sat in one of the visitor chairs and began to review the work Gwen had done.

However, she wasn’t finished talking. “How are you feeling?” she asked in her compassionate voice.

Ianto felt sick, and it wasn’t from the bottle of scotch he’d helped finish late the night before. “I’m fine, Gwen. Once you’ve been through it a few times, you get used to it, right?”

She took the hint, and they went back to work in silence.

A half hour later, Ianto had barely gotten anything done. He sighed and let the file he was reading drop back to the desk. “Do you want anything in particular for lunch?”

“Just a salad for me, thanks.” She laughed at Ianto’s suspicious look. “I’ve got a feeling I might need to fit into something soon.” She winked.

Ianto did not get it, but he knew better than to say. “Oh.” He nodded. “Alright then.”

“I’ll finish the new UNIT requests, there aren’t that many. But are they allowed to ask for information on our weapons from the… Dol-mar-you-nu-tree-ix period?” she sounded out, giving the request form a very confused look.

“There’ve been some requests that go outside UNIT’s purview,” Ianto said disapprovingly. “Check the request history for the last few weeks, cross-reference the current request to ones I’ve already blackmarked.”

“Is that on the database?”

“Nope.” Ianto pointed to a filing cabinet he’d carried up from the archives and tucked in a corner of the office.

Gwen laughed. “What would we do without you, Ianto?”

“Drown in paperwork, I expect.”

The joking managed to raise Ianto’s spirit’s a little, and the cloudless, sunny sky and warm air helped even more. Ianto picked up Italian pasta and breadsticks- and a salad- and returned to the Hub. The grief of the residents of Flat Holm still weighed on his soul, but Ianto was determined to concentrate on the things he could fix. When he brought the food down to the Hub, Owen and Tosh trailed after him to the conference room like puppies, and he laughed out loud.

They all made up their plates. No one stood on decorum at Torchwood, particularly when it came to food, so they’d already started to eat when Gwen entered the room.

“Ianto?” she said quietly.

Ianto finished chewing the chunk of breadstick he’d eaten before he turned to her. “What is it?” he asked, glancing between her dark eyes and the yellow folder held tightly in her hand.

Gwen held up the folder. “What sort of monster are you?” Her tone immediately made Tosh and Owen turn to look at her. She glanced at them, but her gaze returned, heavy and accusing, to Ianto. “You sent this to UNIT a week ago. It’s an update on the status of ‘Prisoner Sato’.”

Ianto was immediately all-too-aware of Gwen’s firearm, tucked in her unbuckled holster on her hip. He looked at Tosh, who had gone pale in her seat. “It’s not anyone’s business,” he began.

“You’re going to tell us right now!” Gwen shouted, drawing her weapon and aiming it between Ianto’s eyes. “You and Jack, you wrote about her, you’re keeping her here! You sick bastard-”

“Gwen, put it down,” Ianto commanded, at the same time as Tosh cried, “It’s not like that!”

“Will somebody please explain what the hell is going on here?” Owen interjected. On the other side of the table from Gwen, he was out of range, but he put up a hand as though to hold her off. “Gwen, Ianto, shut up. Tosh.” His voice was forceful, but his expression was cautious. “Tell us.”

The shaking tech expert looked between all three of her colleagues, from Gwen, still holding her gun on Ianto, to Ianto, who told her without speaking that he’d back whatever she wanted to say, to Owen, who looked- for once- like he cared about what she had to say. “I’m not a prisoner- not really. Technically, I am, but Jack never enforced it.”

“So this was Jack’s doing,” Gwen asserted, tightening her grip.

“No.” Tosh took a deep breath. “It was UNIT.”

“UNIT?” Owen repeated. “How…?”

“Could you please put that away?” Tosh asked Gwen, clutching the back of her chair nervously.

Gwen looked at her pleading eyes, and then at Ianto. Slowly, she lowered her gun, but she didn’t move closer to the table. “Keep talking,” she said quietly.

“I committed treason,” Tosh finally admitted. Her voice was tight, and she cleared her throat. “I was blackmailed into it- they had my mother, and I- I didn’t have a choice.”

Ianto wished he could erase the few feet between them and try to comfort her, but Gwen was still watching him with barely contained anger.

“UNIT arrested me. They were going to keep me in prison forever, alone, with no contact.” Tosh was trembling and Ianto ached for her, but she blinked back her tears.

“Jack got me out. He had to officially take custody of me and agree to all sorts of regulations, but he only ever enforced them when UNIT could find out. I don’t feel trapped here at all, really.”

“So all this,” Gwen held up the folder, “you made it up?” she asked Ianto.

“Yeah.” He looked at Tosh, knowing he couldn’t apologize when what he’d written was to protect her, but feeling terrible nonetheless.

“Well it’s outrageous,” Gwen declared. “Why don’t we tell UNIT that Tosh is with us now? We can’t let this go on!”

“Jack thought it was best,” Ianto countered, “and he knows UNIT better than any of us.”

“Are you in for life, Tosh?” Owen asked, sounding unusually subdued.

“I’ve got another year and a half, then I’m free,” Tosh replied. “But… I think I’ll probably stay here anyway. It’s who I am now.”

Owen nodded. “Then we’ll keep up the lie for another year and a half. We’re not going to let anything happen to you,” he said with a quiet intensity.

He looked strange when he wasn’t angry or cynical, Ianto thought, but he couldn’t feel anything but grateful.

“Thank you.” Tosh managed to smile, and the medic returned it.

“Fine,” Gwen said at last, looking like she was fighting with herself. “I don’t like it, but…”

“None of us do.”

Gwen nodded to him. “I’m sorry, Ianto.”

“I understand. I might have reacted the same way.”

Gwen sat down next to Owen and served herself from pasta. The remainder of lunch was quiet, and they all went back to work without speaking afterwards.

A few hours later, the Rift alarm went off and Tosh determined that a small item had come through.

“I’ll get it,” Owen volunteered.

“I’ll come with you,” Tosh said quickly. Owen turned to look at her and Tosh held up her Palm Pilot. “I can help you find it?”

Owen looked at her for a moment, then said, “Yeah, that’ll be great,” in the casual voice he only used when he wasn’t being casual at all.

“Why don’t we call off early after you’re done,” Gwen suggested, to general agreement.

Ianto stayed for another hour, then said goodbye to Gwen and left. He went for a walk by the bay, enjoying the salty breeze and the vivid colours of the slowly darkening sky. The stars began to come out, so he sat down on a bench and looked up at them, trying to decide which one of them Jack was near at that second.

When the heat of the sun finally disappeared completely, he flipped up his coat collar and walked back to his car.

 

~ ~ * ~ ~

 

Twenty-two days since Jack left

The next morning was too busy to worry about awkwardness. Ianto was making inquiries about a possible appearance of the Doctor in a little English village called Leadworth, Gwen was trying to convince the Cardiff police that angelic visitations were not under Torchwood’s purview, some of Owen’s plants were trying to stage a revolution and the supposedly inert electronic that Tosh and Owen had collected the night before turned out not to be inert after all.

“… and I’m pretty sure it’s scanning us back! Whatever it is, it’s either sentient or it has artificial intelligence, because it would have to be a highly complex piece of technology to recognize and respond to the Torchwood scanners. These things are from centuries ahead of this time, and they’re not even from the same areas of the universe. Jack did say he recognized the origin, maybe if this is from the same area of time or space he can tell us more about-”

Tosh stopped in her ramble to glance around at her harried colleagues. Instead of habitually ignoring her tech-y excitement and urging her to get to the point, they were now concentrating on the device before her a bit too much. Tosh silently cursed herself for the slip.

“Well, anyway, I’m going to find out what it’s looking for.”

She settled down at her workstation, letting the multi-layered radial transquantifyer begin its work.

The others drifted away, or maybe they were still there, but Tosh was in a trance as she continued her analysis and didn’t notice what was going on beyond her workstation until the device began to react.

“Tosh luv, is that thing supposed to be beeping like that?” Gwen asked, a hint of nervousness coming through in her voice.

Tosh typed furiously on her third monitor, trying to make sense of the suddenly peaking readings. “I don’t know what’s happening!” she answered tensely. “It’s been scanning us passively for the last few hours, now it looks like it’s preparing to output!”

“Is this output dangerous?” Gwen asked, crossing her arms. She and Owen were standing behind Tosh and they startled when Ianto spoke up unexpectedly from behind them.

“Shall I get a containment box?”

Tosh wavered. “That might be best, actually. I don’t know what this is planning to do. It might be trying to communicate, or it could be-”

Her words were cut off by a blinding flash of light.


	12. Chapter 12

Tosh blinked.

Then she blinked again

The gray walls, stained with something that she could never determine, didn’t move.

The shadows moved another few inches along the walls.

She moved, from being slumped against the wall to laying down with it by her side.

Nothing changed.

Nothing ever changed, here.

Her mother was screaming, Tosh’s ears aching, head throbbing, nose bleeding, but that was normal.

_“Tosh, help me!”_

Tosh blinked.

This wasn’t how it worked.

“Mum?” she moved, bringing her legs under her before rising, so that if they were kicked out from beneath her she wouldn’t hit the ground too hard. But the door stayed shut as always, no one rushing in to drag her away for interrogation.

Her mother cried her name, and that had never happened before.

“Mum!” Tosh went to the door and dug her nails into the side that opened, not caring that she’d tried a thousand times before. “Mum, I’m coming!”

_“It hurts, please!”_

“Let her go!” Tosh cried, banging on the door, pulling with what little leverage she had.

It didn’t move an inch.

The air throbbed harder, sonic waves bombarding her eardrums. Somehow, her mother’s cries of agony were still perfectly audible, and getting louder.

_“Why won’t you help me!”_

“Let her go, please, let her go!” Tosh screamed in desperation. She threw herself at the door, but it was as uncaring and immovable as ever.

“We cannot let her go,” said the calm, authoritative voice from the speaker on the ceiling.

Tosh gazed up at the blue light as though it were God Himself. “Please, she’s never hurt anyone!”

“We cannot let her go.”

The sonic waves increased. Tosh pounded her fists on the door with all her strength, dug her nails into the metal, searching for hinges. Somehow, she was still able to fight the waves of sound even as her mother’s shrieks rose and rose.

And then, it all stopped.

Everything was silent, just as silent as it always was in her cell.

“Mother?”

The door creaked. A sliver of light entered from the hallway.

Tosh waited, but nothing else happened. No prison guards entered to chain her, no hero in a dark blue cape stood there to save her. She stepped forward and reached out one torn and bloody hand to open the door.

The corridor was empty and seemed to stretch on forever. There were doors a few feet away on either side of Tosh, and she knew there were other people there, maybe innocent people, locked away like animals in a kennel.

She couldn’t help them, though.

On the concrete floor there were drops of blood. Tosh followed the trail, moving faster until she was stumbling along on legs that hadn’t moved this fast in what felt like years. The drops got bigger and bigger and finally, the trail stopped.

The door was open, the cell familiar. It wasn’t because they all looked the same, though.

The cell was her own.

A small, thin body was curled up in the center of the cell in Tosh’s usual position, orange jumpsuit dirty. She stepped forward, breathless, and crouched down beside the prisoner.

“No! Mum!”

~ ~ * ~ ~

“Mam! Mam!”

Gwen spun around, but she couldn’t find the source of her mother’s screams. The others hesitated, waiting for Gwen’s commands. “Split up!” she ordered.

“If we split up, we could get picked off,” Tosh pointed out.

“Alright then, in pairs.” Gwen scanned the empty road, lined with neat and tidy houses. It would have been a suburban paradise if it weren’t for the wrecked cars, scattered across the road by the force of the invaders’ weapons.

These aliens were brutal and evil, and they were her for Gwen’s family.

“Owen, with me,” Gwen commanded, and started in the direction the shouts had come from.

“I’m not field-trained,” Ianto insisted, but Gwen barely heard him. Rhys’s indignant shouts were coming from ahead, and she rushed forward without thinking.

In the backyard of one of the houses, Rhys was trying to fight off a huge rhino-like alien with a viciously long sword. He ducked and tried to punch the creature, but one of its monstrous hands smashed into the side of his head.

“Rhys!” Gwen shrieked, running forward and shooting at the beast. Her bullets made it falter, but one huge foot slammed down on her boyfriend, and Gwen hear a huge crack.

“Nooo!”

She doesn’t have time to do more than scream, though, because Ianto’s calling to her, pointing at the roof of the house, where another of the aliens has climbed with her mother slung over its shoulder.

“Well shoot it!” she shouts in frustration.

“We don’t have a shot.”

Gwen raised her weapon, but there was no angle. Owen was at her shoulder, sighing. “Jack could’ve made it.”

“Well Jack’s not here, is he?” She stepped closer to the roof and tripped.

Gwen screamed. Her father’s bloody face, twisted in agony, seeped blood beneath her, and she scrambled off of him. “Dad, please Dad, don’t leave me!”

A shriek from the roof, and her mother’s body came hurtling down, head smashing on the ground. Gwen screamed again, raising her gun for bloody revenge, but the monster was gone.

“Gwen, help us!”

She spun around, and Tosh, Owen and Ianto were beset by four of the creatures, guns useless against the tough hides. She started toward them, but her ankle was caught and dragged. She fell on her stomach, and when she looked back her father grinned with empty eyes while her mother cackled.

But it was Rhys who’d stopped her, Rhys whose broken body pinned her down and held her fighting arms down while the aliens surrounded her. Claws dripping with the blood of her friends, whose cries filled Gwen’s ears, they reached for her.

The last thing she saw was Rhys’s crushed, laughing face.

~ ~ * ~ ~

Owen walked through the Hub silent as a mouse, feeling as though he’d been awake for days. He stopped by Tosh’s desk and set down a steaming mug. When she didn’t look up, didn’t even notice, his stomach clenched and he moved away, hands tightening slightly on the sliver try clutched between them.

Gwen stood up from her area and collected a few files, heading toward Jack’s office. As she walked by, her eyes passed right over Owen. He stopped short as she nearly collided with him.

“Sorry pet,” she said with an ambiguous wave of the hand. Owen found his face turning up into a polite smile without his input.

Gwen walked on, still not seeing him.

Owen placed a mug from the tray on the former copper’s empty desk. Wondering what to do next, he was surprised when he began moving toward the medical bay.

‘What the- I’m not doing this!’ he said. He was horrified when the words didn’t come out and he kept walking silently toward the med bay. ‘Tosh!’ he tried to yell. Nothing happened.

‘Oh God, I can’t move,’ he realized. He walked down the steps into the medical bay and placed a hot mug on his own desk. Then he glanced around.

Gwen and Jack were still in the Captain’s office and Tosh was focused on her computers. Seeing no one, he began rifling through the medical drawers.

As his body moved without his guidance, Owen became even more confused. ‘What am I looking for?’ he wondered. His body was rifling through the drawers without precision. Finally, he opened the antibiotics drawer and pulled out several syringes with a shaking hand, stuffing them into a pocket.

“Teaboy!”

Owen spun around, blood thumping painfully fast through the veins in his neck. Ianto, dressed in jeans and a tight t-shirt, bounded down the steps into the medical bay. Despite his body practically snapping to attention, again without any thought or direction from his mind, Owen was able to feel a rush of fury that Ianto was wearing his long white doctor’s coat.

“What are you doing in my lab?” demanded Ianto.

‘YOUR lab?!’ Owen tried to shout, but what came out was a quiet, passive sound. “Just tidying up,” he said in a respectful tone. “I didn’t move anything important.”

“You’d better not.” Ianto dropped into Owen’s chair, barely sparing him a glance as he spoke. “Now don’t you have someone to go shag for your job?”

Though Owen was seething inside and itching to wrap his hands around the smug Welshman’s throat, he wasn’t able to say anything as his body quietly left the medical bay, hand drifting slightly toward his now bulging coat pocket.

“Owen?” The Londoner perked up and his body turned toward Tosh’s desk. ‘Please, Tosh, please see me! I can’t control it, I need your help!’

“Yes, Tosh?”

“Could you do me a favor and fetch these files from the archives? I know you’re busy, but,” she smiled with the sense of an old joke, “I also know you’re rather particular about who goes down there.” Tosh held out a note with several file numbers printed clearly.

“My pleasure.”

Screaming inside, Owen descended into the archives, still smiling pleasantly.

After a few minutes of walking, Owen realized where his body was taking him. ‘Oh no, please no!’

It looked exactly the same as it had that night, just a few short months ago, when he’d crept down this very same hallway with Gwen, guns drawn. The last time he’d seen it was when he’d been supporting a blood-stained and dead-to-the-world Ianto up to the Hub couches.

He’d never been back since.

‘Please, please no,’ he chanted silently, stuck inside a body which continued at a steady pace, still unaffected by his attempts to run away. As he watched in horror, he arrived at the door and his hands reached out of their own accord to unlock several dead bolts, drawing a key from another pocket to unlock the last. He pushed the door open.

Owen was in no way prepared for the sight.

“Owen? Sweetheart, is that you?”

“Of course darling, I needed to bring you the antibiotics, didn’t I?”

Katie’s pained face twisted into an ugly attempt at a smile. “It’s not feeling as itchy now,” she told him, her voice strained.

Owen felt himself smiling weakly, his hand unconsciously reached to brush across her cheek the way he used to without thought. “I’ll rub some cream in anyway.” He began to insert the stolen syringes into one of her IVs.

‘God, not Katie, please, I can’t stand to see her like this,’ Owen screamed inside as he gently smoothed anti-infection cream onto Katie’s shoulder. The flesh there was red and inflamed, torn and sticky around the thick metal chest plate that was sunk deep into her body.

“Thank you,” she whimpered when he was done. Then, suddenly solemn, her eyes focused on his and she spoke clearly. “You know how much I love you, Owen? Really love you?”

Owen’s heart felt like it was breaking all over again. His eyes began to water as he spoke, meaning the words with everything inside him even if he still couldn’t actually control them coming out. “I love you too, Katie.”

He drew a finger down the bare skin of her cheek. “They’ll be expecting me,” he whispered after a few minutes of gazing into her pain-blurred eyes.

“I’ll see you soon,” she replied, almost a question, and he immediately leaned down to brush his lips against hers gently.

“Of course you will,” he answered, then left.

She tasted like metal.

He’d collected most of the files on Tosh’s list when the ambush came. Strong hands grabbed his shoulders and spun him off balance so that he fell back into a wall. Before he could regain his balance, a heavy form pressed him against the cold stone of the wall.

“Just the man I was looking for,” Jack said, grinning lecherously. “You don’t have anywhere to be for the next fifteen minutes, do you?”

‘Fuck no, not a chance in HELL!’ Owen cried.

“For you, sir, I’m sure I could clear some time in my schedule.”

He might as well not have spoken. Jack was already mouthing down his neck and working on his belt while Owen’s body struggled with Jack’s braces. Tearing his trousers down off his hips, Jack spun him around against the wall. Owen’s eyes slid shut as he felt the captain’s hands reaching around him, touching him intimately.

‘Katie! Katie!’

~ ~ * ~ ~

“Help! Someone help us, please!”

Ianto screamed over the auto-tuned cries of Cybermen and Daleks and the sounds of their death rays chasing down his friends. The building rumbled as its structural integrity began to deteriorate. He tugged with all his strength at the metal clamps holding Lisa’s half-converted body onto the metal cage, but there was no give. He strained, shouting out his effort, but collapsed against the wall. Lisa was screaming in agony as the evil cutting tools continued to flash around her and dig into her body. “Ianto!”

“I’m trying,” he sobbed, returning to the unit hopelessly. Her screams felt like they were cutting into his chest, tearing him to pieces along with her.

Movement behind him caught Ianto’s attention and he whirled around, ready to rush whoever was threatening Lisa. Jack’s angry face made him freeze as the captain looked over the scene.

“Pull out those plugs, terminate the connection to the Mainframe!” Jack shouted as he darted to the other side of Lisa’s conversion unit.

Ianto took the advice and began tearing at the thick cables connecting the machine to the wall. Jack was working on the monitor hooked up to the cage, using his vortex manipulator to shut down pieces of the machine one by one.

All the lights in the room went off at once and the floor shook as a loud rumble reverberated through the building.

“That’ll be a support wall,” Jack said grimly. Ianto could barely see his face, lit only be the electric sparks of the cables he’d ripped out of the wall.

“It’s stopped,” Lisa gasped, then moaned.

Jack clicked on a torch and ripped a panel off the side of the conversion unit. “Get over here,” he ordered, staring at the insides of the unit. “We’ll retract the clamps, disconnect what we can and get her out of here.”

Ianto stumbled over debris until he reached the panel, following Jack’s instructions as they raced to save Lisa. “Thank you Jack, thank you so much!” he said again and again, voice rough and hitching. “You’re saving us!” Tears of relief blocked Ianto’s view of the wiring and he blinked them away.

Jack grabbing his chin and suddenly their faces were inches apart. “I’m doing this for you, Ianto.”

Unthinking, Ianto reached up to grasp the captain’s neck, hold them together. The moment he did, everything froze. The Daleks and Cybermen went silent, the rumble of the Tower falling to pieces ceased, the screams of Ianto’s colleagues stopped without even an echo. Even Lisa’s sobbing and moaning were gone.

The only thing he could hear was Jack’s breath, in, out, against his parted lips. The only thing he could see was the captain’s face, deep blue eyes blazing into his. The only thing he could feel was the warmth that emanated from Jack’s body in a room that suddenly seemed so cold, cold as metal.

An unmistakable noise filled the air.

The Tardis.

Jack’s gaze tore away from Ianto’s, his face lighting up in a way Ianto had never witnessed. “Doctor,” he whispered. He stood.

“Jack, wait!” Ianto cried, voice cracking in horror. “You have to help us, please!”

Jack looked at Lisa, her warm brown eyes wide with terror, and drew his Webley. “Too dangerous.”

Ianto grabbed the captain’s arm, still on his knees. “No, we can save her!”

Jack narrowed his eyes at Ianto. “Not worth it.” He shook Ianto off his arm, and before Ianto could react he’d shot Lisa between the eyes.

Deafened by the noise of the gunshot, Ianto couldn’t hear his own scream. He could only feel that his mouth was open wide, his chest tightening, his throat vibrating, straining. When he stopped, he could only gasp for air and stare up at Jack in horror as the captain began to say something, then just shook his head. With a snort and a condescending pat on the head, he stepped past Ianto and started running as soon as he left the room.

Ianto stumbled to his feet, coordination gone, and tried to run after him, leaving Lisa behind to follow that blue coat that always seemed to flash around a corner just as he caught sight of it. He ran into his old office, desks and chairs in disarray everywhere, and watched Jack disappear into the blue box just before it dematerialized.

Only when the box was entirely gone did Ianto look around him, and he barely stopped himself from falling to the ground in fear. A legion of Cybermen were surrounding him, blood and metal draped perversely around his colleagues, people he’d been friends with. Tosh, Owen and Gwen were amongst them, hatred spelled out in their faces. Dead eyes stared at him, silver hands reached for him, and Lisa, at the head of the pack, spoke to him, her voice robotic and merciless.

“DELETE!”

He fell backwards, pushed away from another metal-encased body behind him. He stared up helplessly at the beautiful, blank face of his love and closed his eyes when she pointed at him. Her metallic voice rang through his head.

“We are not compatible!”


	13. Chapter 13

All four member of the Torchwood team cried out at the same time. In a way that would have been hilarious if they weren’t various states of unhinged, they flinched and looked around at each other.

Owen was the first to find his voice. “What the fuck was that?” he shouted near-hysterically.

Tosh looked at the innocently humming device on her workstation. “I… I don’t know,” she croaked, sounding as though she hadn’t spoken in ages.

Ianto ran a hand through his hand, brushing a fear tears off his face on the way. “I’ll get that containment box.”

Gwen watched him goes with wide open eyes, then pulled out her mobile and moved away.

Tosh sat in her chair, opening and closing her hands, until Owen pulled her to her feet. “Don’t just sit there next to it,” he said scornfully, and then she slumped forward off her chair and he had to catch her. “Tosh! Tosh!”

He dragged Tosh’s deadweight onto the couch and knelt in front of her to look at her face. “Tosh, speak to me luv.”

“It was just like before,” she whispered, starting to cry.

Owen had no idea what she was talking about, but if it was anything like what he’d seen… he pulled her into a hug and she shuddered.

“Are you two alright?” Gwen said quietly, returning with her phone in her hand. Owen examined her quickly, but besides being pale and shaky, she didn’t look hurt.

“Not really,” he admitted, forcing down the image of Katie in the conversion unit. “You?”

“No,” Gwen whispered. She sat beside Tosh and stared at her knees.

No one moved until Ianto returned with a heavy-looking iron box. He placed it on Tosh’s workstation as the all watched and used a heavy pair of tongs to pick up the unknown device and place it in the box. Then he closed the lid, and it hissed until it was air-tight. Glancing at his colleagues, Ianto fastened on one of the Torchwood locks labeled ‘Not for Use’.

“I’ll lock this away, yeah?”

No one objected. Ianto vanished into the office. When he returned, he looked at the group on the couch, and then sat down in Tosh’s chair, dropping his head into his hands and becoming very still.

 

~ ~ * ~ ~

 

Twenty-three days since Jack left

Ianto was already working in Jack’s office when Tosh skittered into the Hub early the next morning. They met each others’ eyes briefly, then quickly looked away. Ianto continued typing and Tosh took off her coat.

When Owen arrived, he didn’t look at either of them. Head down, he tore off his jacket and threw it on the couch before heading straight down to the medical bay.

Gwen showed up around eight thirty, wearing more make-up than usual. It wasn’t quite enough to cover the shadows under her eyes, and certainly did nothing for the wildness in her expression. She made enough noise, walking up the steps and stopping in the middle of the main path, that her colleagues were all watching her when she stopped and puts her hands on her hips.

She looked at each of them in turn: Ianto, even paler than usual and hollow-eyed like he hadn’t gone to sleep at all; Tosh, wearing a long, thick shirt with a high collar and slouching over her keyboard; Owen, whose chest was moving with breaths far too deep for sitting at his desk doing nothing.

“Okay,” Gwen murmured, though the Hub was quiet enough that everyone could her. “Here’s what we’re doing. Tosh, Owen, you finish calming down the greenhouse. Lock up the plants that were causing trouble, we’ll talk to them tomorrow to see what we can negotiate.”

Tosh nodded and shut down the program she had been half-heartedly constructing. Owen didn’t acknowledge the order, but he started collecting spray bottles from a cabinet.

“Ianto, go take a nap, and don’t you dare argue with me!” Gwen pointed her finger at Ianto as he started to protest. “You look like a zombie. We can’t get anything done around here if we have to try and catch you, right?”

Not even Gwen could manage a smile at the weak joke, but Ianto nodded- more a bob of his head, already hanging- and slowly got up from his chair, heading down to the resting rooms down the hall from the main Hub.

Once he was gone, Gwen checked in on what Ianto’d been working on. Something about the Doctor showing up in a small town in the wilds of England. From Ianto’s correspondence with the locals, it looked like the Doctor was gone, if he’d ever really been in town. Gwen typed up a quick but sincere email, thanking their contact for the information and asking to be updated immediately if any new developments occurred.

A sour taste filled her mouth as she sent the email off. It was terrible, imagining the Doctor in Britain going on about his jolly adventures when he’d taken someone Gwen and her friends needed so much… Or imagining Jack with him, gallivanting around time and space, coming so close to where he belonged and then haring off again.

Gwen shook her head. There was work to be done.

She sent off a few more quick messages to people who’d contacted Ianto, letting them know he had a bug and would be out of the office for a day or so, and set up an email auto-response for him with the same message.

Afterwards, Gwen returned to her desk and whiled away two hours on her pet project, conducting safety tests on all of Torchwood’s common-use equipment and weapons and sending anything non-classified out for maintenance. Technically, the base-wide check was meant to be performed every year, but it looked like no one had bothered since Suzie’s first year at Cardiff. Gwen had found a mention deep in one of the reports she’d covered for Ianto and leapt on the opportunity to do something preventative for once. She’d already identified and fixed several issues that could have become dangerous within a few months or years.

By the time Tosh and Owen had finished up in the greenhouse and changed out of their dirt-streaked sweats, Gwen’s stomach was rumbling. A suggestion of going out for lunch was positively, if not cheerfully, received, and Gwen went to wake Ianto.

“We’re going out for lunch,” she told him, firmly but gently, as he put his shoes back on, still sitting on the cot and patting down his hair where the pillow had made a cow-lick. “We’re even going to sit outside, and I won’t hear a word against it. We all need the sunlight and fresh air.”

Ianto smiled softly. “I wasn’t going to argue,” he said quietly.

Gwen squinted at him suspiciously, and the smile grew.

The team piled into one of the unmarked SUVs and Gwen drove them to a restaurant and pub she and Rhys liked. Owen complained when she had the hostess seat them outside, but Tosh sighed and tipped her face back to the sun. Gwen nodded in her direction. They both saw the painful pink line on the side of Tosh’s face, more visible than it usually was under the Hubs lights, where Ianto’s bullet had winged her. Owen stopped complaining, but he just stared at the menu, unseeing.

They order food and Gwen orders a large dark pint. “We’re off the clock today,” Gwen said in response to the surprised looks she got.

Tosh and Ianto protested, of course, while Owen easily ordered his own drink. Gwen cut down their protests quickly, assuring Ianto that she’d covered his work and Tosh that the Rift machine was clear but she’d set up the alert system anyway. “We’re all exhausted, and if you don’t mind me saying, we’re all wrecked. Today we’re going to eat and drink and not think about- anything that matters,” she finished adamantly.

Giving in, Tosh and Ianto ordered alcohol as well. Normally, when Torchwood out, one or two of them would refrain, but it wasn’t a refraining kind of day. As far as Gwn was concerned, the Rift could fall into the sea and she wouldn’t give a shit.

When their drinks arrived, Gwen started chugging hers. Owen crowed and tried to match her, while Tosh and Ianto exchanged looks. Gwen slammed her glass on the table and grinned, nodding to their amused waitress for another. She dabbed at her lips with a napkin while Owen argued about her head start.

“Are you sure you want to be drinking like this?” Tosh asked looking between the pair of them with concern. “It’s barely one.”

“We’ll eat in a few minutes. It’s fine,” Gwen said certainly. Tosh looked at Ianto, who shrugged, and they both started sipping their own drinks.

One or two carefully selected in-law stories from Gwen, a drunk university story from Owen and Tosh’s quick story-top later, the atmosphere was much improved as the team dug into their food. The sun was out, but not blazing; the morning’s chill was seared out of the air. Still, it was enough for Gwen to start feeling her skin protest being outside. She looked inside her purse, but- “Dammit, I didn’t bring sunblock.” She started to stand up, intending to fetch the tube from the SUVs glove-box, but she stumbled against the leg of Ianto’ chair and he stabilized her.

“I’ve got some,” he offered, pulling a travel-sized tube from the pocket of his coat. He smiled at her, commiseratingly. “Bring it everywhere.”

Gwen went to the ladies’ to apply the lotion and take care of business, and when she got back Owen and Tosh were arguing in some foreign language. They seemed in high spirits, though, and for once Ianto was eating heartily, big bites as he watched them go back and forth, so Gwen just sat back and watched.

Far too soon, they were all full, but Gwen insisted that they would wait until they weren’t full anymore and order dessert. Tosh giggled and Ianto laughed outright, which made up for Owens teasing about her sweet tooth and how she wasn’t holding her liquor. Gwen fired back an inquiry about how well Owen could hold his liquor, and Tosh made the most mischievous grin Gwen had ever seen on her.

“Not as well a you might think,” she hinted.

The following tale actually brought a blush to Owen’s face, and Ianto loudly insisted that he would be calling up footage as soon as Gwen let them back into the Hub.

For dessert, Gwen ordered her favorite double chocolate mousse cake, and took her time savoring it: firstly, because Owen was a little bit right, and she should definitely wait a while before trying to drive anywhere; and secondly, because wedding dresses didn’t fit themselves. She looked down at the cake and pouted a little, considering that it would probably be the last time she’d have it for a few months.

Then she realized she was sticking her lower lip out at a slice of cake, in public, and burst out laughing at herself.

“Alright there?” Owen asked with a teasing nudge.

“I’m fine,” Gwen answered. “I’m great, in fact. Just thinking about the future.”

For once, it was completely true.  
  


  
  
Around four, their mobiles all started beeping at the same time. There was a collective groan, and Ianto checks the alert. “Weevil,” he summarized, scanning the screen. “Should be an easy one. I’ll pick it up and swing ‘round to the Hub- I know, I won’t work,” he surrendered to Gwen’s glare, “but I have some clothes that need dry-cleaning there.” At Gwen’s imperious nod, he got up to leave. “See you all tomorrow.”

“Hey, I’ll tag along,” Owen spoke up. He grabbed his jacket and waved a quick farewell behind him as he caught up to Ianto. “Let them chat, I don’t want to put up with it.”

Ianto raised an eyebrow, but got into the passenger seat when Owen made gimme-hands at the keys. They drove in silence for a while, the internal GPS guiding Owen to the Weevil’s location, while Ianto checked his email on the SUV’s computer. Even if he couldn’t answer emails, it would be a good head-start to plan tomorrow’s workload.

“Hey, Ianto,” Owen began when they were a few minutes out.

Ianto’s inner alarm went off at the tone of the doctor’s voice. “Yeah?” he muttered, pretending to be engrossed by his email.

“You know when you first started working here?”

“Yeah?”

“And I was sort of… I don’t know, a bit of a nag to you?”

Ianto looked up from the computer. “A _nag_?”

Owen shrugged uncomfortably. “Okay, an arsehole, what do you want from me?”

“You _were_ sort of an arsehole?”

“Okay I still am, will you shut up, I’m trying to apologize!” Owen glanced at Ianto, who was waiting patiently. “Okay. So.” He took a deep breath. “I knew you were coming from the Battle and I should have tried to get you proper help, instead of being a shit.”

Ianto sat blinking at him. “I… thank you but I don’t think there was anything that anyone could have done for me at the time. I wasn’t… very open to the four of you.”

Owen _hmph_ ed. “I’m no psychiatrist, but I should have referred you to one, at least. If you’d gotten some help for the dissociation and hypervigilance, maybe things would have,” he shrugged, “proceeded differently.”

“I… how do you know if I was- hyper-vigilant’?”

“It’s a common reaction to trauma.” Owen turned them around a corner tightly and Ianto gripped the door handle.

“But, how do you know if I had it?”

“‘S obvious, I guess,” the doctor murmured, pulling the SUV to a stop. “We’re here. Just-” he jerked the keys out of the car and looked at Ianto intently. “I’m sorry. Alright?”

“Sure,” Ianto agreed. Then he watched bemused, as Owen grabbed a scanner and headed off after the Weevil.


	14. Chapter 14

Twenty-nine days since Jack left

Ianto surveyed the Hub from the walkway and wiped his brow, leaning against one of the railings. He surveyed the disaster zone that was the Hub, even after a half day’s dedicated work of cleaning it. He wished he wasn’t the only one trying to improve the appearance and particularly the odor of the Hub, but the others were doing important work themselves. He picked out his colleagues down below.

Gwen had her desk phone tucked into her ear while she typed on her desktop. She’d taken over communications for Ianto when he’d actually fallen asleep in the middle of a call, and was managing better than Ianto was capable at the moment. At her side, the fax machine was spitting another missive onto a pile that was already easily an inch thick, but she looked invigorated rather than drained. He wished her well to it.

All the surfaces in the medbay were cleared off to give Owen space for the gallon of antidote he was concocting. The doctor had been silent for the better part of an hour, his movements economical and his expression intent as he created a brew that would hopefully cure the hundreds currently in hospital. Owen had a burn mark on his left arm, tidily treated by one of the doctors at the temporary HQ in Birmingham, but he didn’t seem to notice it as he focused on his work.

And Tosh…

“How are you?”

Ianto flinched when she spoke and scrubbed at his eyes madly. “I’m, uh- well… I could use a few more hours of sleep, he managed to say after a moment’s thought.

Tosh tries to smile, but only shrugged. “We all could. It’ been a long- week?”

“Tuesday was when the satellites went down, so…”

“And Friday we got tossed in the Thames. Was it really only five days?” Tosh mused. She rested her weight against the railing beside Ianto and linked her arm with his.

Ianto looked down at her thoughtfully. A few weeks ago, he wouldn’t have known what to make of such a casual, friendly motion, but now, what with everything he knew about her past, all they’d gone through together… it felt natural. He leaned a bit into her and she sighed.

“I know we still have a lot to do, but I just wish we could have some time off. Seems like Torchwood always gets stuck with the combat and clean-up on these sort of things.”

“We did do the lion’s share of the work on this one, didn’t we?” Ianto agreed.

“Gwen was wonderful,” Tosh said quietly. “I mean, she panicked at the beginning, but we all did; those things appearing out of the ground like that. But once we figured out what they were-”

“She was as good as Jack.”

Tosh looked up at him and they shared a moment of silence.

“Yes, she was. And Owen- he could have died in the tunnels, but he never hesitated.”

“You were rather brave yourself,” Ianto recalled.

“I knew you were right behind me.” She winked, but even the genuine humor in her eyes couldn’t distract from the weariness etched into her features, more than pure exhaustion. All of them could have died over the last few days and it was only because they’d come together as a team and relied on each other that they’d made it through, and Great Britain with them.

Ianto hummed in answer, but his tired mind was already starting to spin anew. He glanced over the walkway again, checked the walls up to Myfanwy’s nest (where the Hub’s guard dog had snagged more than a few invaders for a snack) and then down to the Rift pool. He’d cleaned up everything that would stink the place up; any repairs from the attack could wait until the crisis was complete and they’d all rested up.

“Didn’t you say something on Wednesday about a pub quiz?” he blurted out.

Tosh nodded. “At the place Gwen took us to last week. They do it every week, it said in the entryway. Why do you ask?”

Ianto checked his watch; noontime. They could make it. “I’ve got a plan.”

~ ~ * ~ ~

“Alright, I hope you’re all ready for round four! Everyone? Okay, here we go. Name the eighteen first-class county cricket teams in the County Championship.”

“Oooh, my ex was obsessed with them, made for terrible nights in, I’ve got this one.”

Ianto sat back in the booth while Gwen scribbled on their sheet and Owen helped her along. Tosh was digging into the chip bucket and taking long drags at her drink. Ianto made a note to get her some chocolate later on and glanced around for their waiter; their food should be arriving soon.

Just as he spotted the man, his mobile went off. Ianto excused himself quickly and got up from the table, answering as he reached a quiet corner. It was the same man from Downing Street calling about the budget, which- Ianto closed his eyes and let his head fall forward against a wall- was meant to be sent in two days ago. “I understand we’re on extension, but if you’ve been paying attention to the news you’ll know why-”

Ianto glanced back at the table. He could see his food from here, a huge plate of spag steaming and gleaming in the lights. He hadn’t eaten since midday and it was nearly ten. Gwen and Owen were waving him over.

“We’re currently down a member of our rotation and dealing with an international red alert.”

“Yes, the incursion is over. But stand-down was only declared at three o’clock this morning, and there’s rather a lot to do afterwards, if you don’t mind-”

A hand tugged on his elbow. “What the hell?” Owen said somewhat quietly.

Ianto put a hand over the mouthpiece of his mobile, ignoring the posh insinuative tone coming through the earpiece. “The budget is late. I’m trying to get us more time, but-”

“Give me that, fuckin hell- Listen here,” Owen snarled into the phone. Ianto rubbed his hand where the doctor had snatched it. “You ungrateful, smug bastard. Torchwood just saved your arse and the arse of everyone in the UK, so why don’t you go stuff your pie-hole with a steak to celebrate the on-going nature of your pathetic life and leave us in peace.”

He snapped Ianto’s mobile closed and shoved it into his unfeeling hands. “Now will you come back to the table, the next round's about to go off.”

“Wait, you- but,” Ianto stuttered.

Owen shrugged. “Sometimes, Jack had the right idea,” he said casually. “Now, I’m prescribing you some calories and a grand prize of twenty-five pounds to this dump. Come help us win.” He dragged Ianto back to the table by his sleeve just as the next round was announced.

Tosh smiled up at the both of them as they arrived. Gwen gave Owen an approving nod that the doctor pretended not to see, and then another of the same to Ianto. Ianto was surprised to feel himself blushing, feeling a warmth inside that made even the hours he’d spent going over the budget seem like they might be worth it.

The next round was about the British military. The Torchwood team shared four dangerous grins, and Tosh picked up their pen.


	15. Chapter 15

Thirty days since Jack left

Ianto stared at the report in front of him, eyes traveling blankly along the lines of text. Black lines and symbols blurred into smudges. He blinked, squeezing his eyelids.

One month. An entire month. It felt like so long, and yet they felt Jack’s absence resoundingly as if it were had been mere hours. He’d stopped ordering Jack’s coffee, cancelled his credit cards and bank accounts, given the ‘long-term mission’ line to anyone who asked. And yet this paper, this one internal report, felt like more of an end than closing the captain’s bunker. He tried not to let ‘for the last time’ pass through his mind as he remembered that night.

Thirty days without their captain. Funny how it didn’t sound like long at all, and yet here was this paper in his hand, ready to be signed.

Removal from Active Duty Roster. Subject: Captain Jack Harkness  
  


[ ](http://smg.photobucket.com/user/airaspade/media/tw-pen-5-png.png.html)

  
Ianto’s pen shook as he filled out the check-sheet and information boxes. Reason for removal: Not available due to absence. Recourse (RetCon, termination, transfer to non-field assignment or alternate location): Recourse to be decided upon location. Agent overseeing removal: Ianto Jones.

His hand hovered over the last blank line, millimeters away from the page. With a tiny breath, neither a gasp nor a sigh, he drew back and threw the pen across the room. It made a low ting as it bounced off one of the filing cabinets and he stormed out of the office toward the main Hub, the report left at the center of Jack’s desk.

Maybe some coffee would help.

Outside in the Hub, it was still a mess. The individual workstations were cleared off, but there was a pile of broken equipment and unsalvageable decorations and junk piled between Tosh and Owen’s stations and spilling out so they had to walk around it. Ianto’s coffee area was a mess, so he took ten minutes to put it back together enough to make drinks for the team. He should have done the rest, but… maybe later.

Ianto unearthed a bag of biscuits and brought the tea tray up to the couch, and his teammates followed their noses to sit in a loose circle; Gwen beside him, and Tosh and Owen in their desk chairs. He drank most of his cup before coming clean.

“I filed the duty roster change form.”

Gwen made a clucking noise and put her hand over his. “I’m sorry Ianto, you should have let me do it.”

He shook his head. “It’s just a single paper, it was no trouble.”

Gwen nodded and withdrew her hand as though that was what she’d meant.

Owen, not so generous, crunched a biscuit obnoxiously. “So that’s it then? We’re done waiting?” he asked with a challenge in his raised eyebrow.

“It’s protocol,” Tosh said, censure in her voice as she glared at Owen. The doctor raised his hands in defence.

“I _mean…_ are we done?” he repeated quietly. The anger was gone from his voice, and behind it there was uncertainty.

The agents of Torchwood looked at each other in silence.

“He’ll come back,” Tosh said. Ianto looked at her curiously and saw in her face a conviction that none of them had been able to sum up a month ago.

“How do you know?” he asked.

“How could he leave this?” Tosh smiled and spun in her chair, taking in the whole Hub.

A month ago, they would have reacted with sarcasm or, more likely, cynicism. Now, it was different.

Gwen laughed. “You’re right, Tosh. Where could he find that’s better than Torchwood?”

Owen grinned. “We are _pretty_ fantastic.”

Ianto finished his coffee and closed his eyes, feeling their reborn faith sinking into his heart

Just then, the Rift alarm went off, loudly enough to drown out their sounds of dismay.

“Well, that’s that for a rest,” Gwen groaned good-naturedly. She patted Ianto on the shoulder as she got up, setting her mug back on the tray. “Life goes on.”

And it did.  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for sticking around with this one, guys. I loved this story for years, through numerous ups and downs, I think it will probably be my last long fic in this fandom, but I'm moving on to similarly awesome things. I hope you all had just as amazing, inspiring, and fulfilling time here as I did. <3

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Art for 'Counting the Days' by Meatball42](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7446352) by [stormbrite](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stormbrite/pseuds/stormbrite)




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